Sam Caligiuri fires the first shot in what is sure to be a months-long culture war for the right-wing base in the coming Republican Senate primary by stating he would vote against the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court (campaign press release via Facebook):
Southington - Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination as our nation's next Supreme Court Justice, with a full Senate vote scheduled for early August. Despite her laudable personal achievements and years of public service, I cannot support this nomination and I ask Senator Dodd to oppose it as well.
I have come to this conclusion as many Americans have, because a judicial nomination should be measured by the nominee's approach to the law and not a personal story, however appealing it may be. How are we are supposed to trust that Judge Sotomayor will not be an activist judge after having made clear statements to the contrary?...
It will be interesting to see how Tom Foley and Rob Simmons say they will vote on Sotomayor. I wonder if either of them would even feel comfortable saying out loud that Barack Obama is a natural-born United States citizen. The battle for the Republican nomination over the next year will be a run to the right, and no candidate can afford to completely write off the most hardcore primary voters in that party, no matter how factually- or sanity-challenged they happen to be.
For more on the GOP primary circus that will soon possibly be taking over the Nutmeg state, make sure to read Colin McEnroe's hilarious column from this past weekend, wherein he auditions for the position of ringmaster Chief Senior Nationwide Analyst:
I wanted to meet Caligiuri for my own purposes, because he is one of at least three people seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, in order to run against Chris Dodd in 2010. I have decided to become an expert on that election because I think it has the potential to attract national interest. If I become a knowledgeable pundit, I can probably go on CNN and touch Wolf Blitzer's beard, which is said to cure arthritis.
Ted Mann at The Day was able to get a look at Rob Simmons' just-filed 2Q FEC filing (still unavailable online), and uncovered some real gems.
First of all, that $750k topline number? It includes a $20,000 loan to the campaign from Simmons himself, plus $112,000 in unpaid debts - about 15% of his total take - for "direct mail and postage". If you subtract the latter number from his cash on hand total, you get something like $448k, much closer to Tom Foley's number which he banked in only 26 days. (Edited: apologies for attempting early-morning math.) Which surely explains why he hasn't paid off those debts yet.
Secondly, Tribune Co. and Courant owner Sam Zell contributed to Simmons. Something to keep in mind as we follow the Courant's coverage of the upcoming GOP primary.
Finally, Mann notes Simmons' connections to the very financial lobbyist interests he attacks Dodd for having connections with:
Simmons, meanwhile, took in more than $730,000 over the second quarter, including plenty of individual contributions from some executives at firms connected to the financial services industry. Among those contributors are L. George Rieger, an investment strategist at Greenwich Investment Management, Lawrence M. Clark, an analyst at New York-based Harbinger Capital Partners, financier Mark R. Shenkman, and Jonathan Bush, the director of J. Bush and Co. and brother of President George H. W. Bush.
Hilariously, Simmons' allies at the NRSC actually sent out an email to their lobbyist donors yesterday, "assuring them that the folks there appreciate the job they are doing," according to the Sunlight Foundation.
That's right. The GOP is trying to buck up those poor neglected lobbyists and convince them that Rob Simmons will show them more respect that Chris Dodd. Here's the actual text of their love letter:
For what it is worth, we believe you are doing your job, a job that is very much a part of the democratic process; to make sure Congress understands how proposed policy will affect their constituents, business and other interests around our country. I guess Chris Dodd just wants your financial support but not your company.
Here's what prompted the NRSC's response, a Dodd campaign page where you can "send a message to lobbyists to let them know how bad you feel that Chris Dodd is fighting for our interests in the Senate instead of theirs":
Somehow, someone at CTLP got access to a hilarious "internal" Simmons campaign memo trying to spin his disastrous second quarter fundraising total: he only raised $750k despite being able to raise money full-time for 91 days, for a candidate who had hoped to raise over $1 million this quarter in order to be competitive. This, compared to Bush Pioneer Tom Foley who raised money at more than twice Simmons' rate in the mere 26 days he's been in the race.
If you want to know how worried the Simmons camp is about Foley, look past the silly bravado of the campaign "memo" and note that he also used it as an opportunity to attack the Ambassador from Greenwich for his ties to George W. Bush:
We learned yesterday that Ambassador Foley raised about $530,000 this quarter, a significant amount, though less than we anticipated given his background. That you outraised a professional political fundraiser and well-connected Wall Street executive whose money-raising proficiency on behalf of President George W. Bush earned him a plum ambassadorship by 42 percent is impressive.
Simmons' usual campaign M.O. is to launch negative attack after attack from the very beginning, and it appears from this opening salvo that this tightly contested Republican primary will be no different for a self-declared "frontrunner" who is acting like anything but one.
Update: CTLP seems to be down. Here's Roll Call on Simmons' numbers, I guess they also got the internal memo:
Former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) has raised more than $753,000 since March for his Senate campaign, according to a fundraising memo obtained by Roll Call.
Simmons is in a three-way primary for the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Chris Dodd (D). Senate Republicans have indicated they are inclined to support Simmons, who has led Dodd in several polls testing the 2010 race.
The Simmons campaign takes aim in the memo at one of their GOP opponents, former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, who announced Tuesday that he raised more than $530,000 in one month for his bid. Simmons campaign manager Jim Barnett wrote in the memo that Foley's total was "less than we anticipated given his background as" a "professional political fundraiser and well-connected Wall Street Executive."
The first hints at 2Q fundraising numbers are dripping out for the three declared Republican candidates for Senate, and it looks like a four-way primary with no real favorite may be in the offing:
Longtime Republican fundraiser Tom Foley has burst onto the political scene by raising more than $530,000 in the first 26 days since announcing he is running for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Christopher Dodd....
Former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, 66, widely viewed by insiders and in the polls as the Republican frontrunner in the race, has been raising money for the entire quarter and said he had topped Foley's amount.
"We did a little better than that,'' Simmons told Capitol Watch....
State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, 42, who represents Waterbury and surrounding towns, said he worked in approximately the same timeframe as Foley because he was tied up with the hectic ending of the regular legislative session at the state Capitol in Hartford.
"We raised about $125,000 during the same period,'' Caligiuri said Tuesday.
So, to recap the financial state of the Republican primary race, without having the actual FEC reports to look at yet:
- Rob Simmons, the biggest name in the race and the establishment GOP choice, barely beat the field by raising "a little" better than Foley's $530k despite having three full months to engage in full-time fundraising.
- Tom Foley, Greenwich millionaire and Bush Pioneer, raised over $530k in only 26 days, largely, one expects, by shaking the Bush money tree. (And, while self-funding is also an option for him, he reportedly did not do so at all this past quarter.)
- Sam Caligiuri, the right-wing conservative option in the race who may come to the starting gate with the highest level of support among the all-important base, raised about $125k, despite being involved in a protracted legislative session.
- Peter Schiff, who still sounds very much like he intends to run in a Republican primary for Senate, might very well be able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars online in just a few days after officially announcing. And he likely has the resources to self-fund as well.
Meanwhile, Senator Dodd, accused by both lobbyists and Republicans of overextending himself not in his campaign but in his Senate committee work on Banking and Health Care, finds himself trying to keep up with the above declared Republicans who are all currently full-time fundraisers.
All in all, it sounds like a competitive four-way Republican primary might actually actually happen next year. (And if it does, Simmons, Foley, and Caligiuri will likely need to raise even more money than originally planned.)
Sam Caligiuri, in fact, seems to have already fired the first shot of the primary, and it's a very interesting one coming at the start of one of the first meaningful Republican primary races in the nation in the post-Bush era. Today, Republican State Senator Sam Caligiuri attempted to hit former Republican Ambassador Tom Foley by tying him to... former Republican President George W. Bush:
"We didn't start meaningful fundraising until after the session ended on June 3. That's a very good number [for Foley], but not a surprising number for a Greenwich millionaire who was a top fundraiser for George W. Bush. That's how he got to be Ambassador to Ireland.''
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