CT Blue

We owe Chris Dodd a debt of gratitude for doing the right thing today. Some of his problems were self inflicted. Most were not, but none of that matters in politics, where perception so often makes reality.

He was an excellent Senator, and a year from November that’s the way most people will remember him, too late, unfortunately, for this November. We’re lucky that we have a strong bench here in Connecticut. We now have to hope that Simmons both stays in the race and gets the nomination. Blumenthal will grind him up. Simmons didn’t beat Sam Gejdenson in 2000; Sam beat himself. Simmons’ only hope this year was for Dodd to beat himself, and now that hope is gone. Simmons fundraising has been anemic at best, considering that Dodd was considered so vulnerable. The money will now dry up awfully fast. Here’s hoping it doesn’t dry up so much that he drops out. I may be alone in this, but I worry about McMahon. Money talks in this country.

I just got a phone call from a friend who congratulated me on correctly predicting that Dodd would drop out. I would feel better about my prescience if I had any recollection of doing so. He says he has witnesses, so I guess I did.

By the way, don’t be fooled by the media’s willingness to spread the Republican meme about Democrats jumping ship, or, as ABC reported, about Democrats “dropping like flies“. More Republicans Senators, Congresspersons and Governors have chosen not to run than Democrats in like offices. That doesn’t mean the Democrats won’t have it tough this November. They have turned off their base and the Independents too. They are naturally situated ideologically to spend the next year slamming Wall Street, which might bring them back into the good graces of the electorate, but they won’t do it. And, with Chris gone,they are poised to put Wall Street’s best friend in charge of the Banking Committee, something they will surely do (assuming they manage to hold onto the Senate) rather than disturb the collegiality of the Senate. After all, what’s more important, good feeling among Senators, or the American people?

I’m not sure what I think of this.

Part of me agrees that, as Dodd says, we should set the records straight. The other part of me feels that it’s a fools errand to even respond to the Republicans patently absurd claims that they have been shut out of the health care process. In fact, as Dodd points out, the act contains numerous Republican proposals, not one of which garnered a single Republican vote. Why, the Democrats even came up with compromises like the opt out and the trigger and all that other tripe, all on their own, to make the act more attractive to the zero Republicans who voted for it.

The Republicans have become very adept at the big lie. If you say something loud enough and long enough a fair number of people will believe it. Of course, it helps to have a fair and balanced TV network to reinforce the message.

Seems that I’m mentioned in a front page article in the Courant today.

The reporter, Daniela Altimari, sent me an email asking to talk to me about an “open letter” to Chris Dodd that I posted a few weeks ago. In that letter I bemoaned Dodd’s statement to the effect that Lieberman should suffer no consequences for his latest betrayal (at that point) of the Democratic party’s agenda.

I am always ambivalent about talking to reporters. It always seems that they are looking for the quote that fits their agenda. On the other hand, if you write a blog like this you sort of have a responsibility to defend your point of view, so I called her.

The result is here.

The part about me reads as follows:

Some express anger at Dodd for refusing to punish his colleague, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Viewed by many Democrats as Public Enemy No. 1, Lieberman has taken a hard-line stance on health care, pledging to quash any proposal that contains a government-sponsored insurance plan. Dodd and other Democrats dismissed the idea that Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, ought to face consequences for his stance.

In an open letter to Dodd, John Wirzbicki, a member of the Groton Democratic Town Committee and a Dodd supporter, expressed his disenchantment.

“Enacting a health care program that is not a sham will enhance your re-election prospects,” Wirzbicki wrote in the Oct. 28 letter, which was posted on his blog, CT Blue. “Coddling Joe Lieberman won’t, particularly if by doing so you torpedo health care. If we end up with another Republican Senator from Connecticut, your supporters like me will be disappointed.”

In an interview, Wirzbicki emphasized that he remains a Dodd fan. “But something happens to people when they spend a lot of time in Washington. They start to become part of a culture that’s disconnected. For him to come out and immediately close ranks, it sort of makes you think the guy isn’t really aware of the feelings of people he relies on the most.”

Despite it all, count Wirzbicki among the Dodd faithful. “Dodd’s not perfect, but the fact of the matter is, you couldn’t ask for a much better senator. … I’m not going to abandon him because he’s human.”

I can’t speak to the rest of the article, but I can’t say that Altimari misrepresented my statements, though I’m not sure anything I said lends that much support to her main thesis. I wouldn’t have used the word “anger” to describe my reactions to his statements about Lieberman, nor would I use the word “disenchantment”, but those are actually minor quibbles.

She really didn’t produce much evidence in support of her claim that there is a sense of panic among Democrats about Dodd. We all recognize that he has a fight on his hands, but it’s a winnable fight, made more difficult by the fact that he will undoubtedly be dealing with a Connecticut press that will be pushing the same meme as Ms. Altimari. Meanwhile, we can count on his opponents to go unexamined (and I’m not talking about Alpert) until it’s too late to make a difference. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the press will stick that “moderate” label on Simmons at every opportunity, despite his proven record of slavish obedience to his right wing masters, not to mention the teabag he claims to have wrapped around his pocket constitution.

Dodd can win. He is advocating some popular, progressive legislation right now. When the time comes, it would be helpful if he could maneuver his opponent into taking a stand on the issues he’s currently championing. Is Simmons for or against capping outrageous credit card rates? Inquiring minds want to know, and either way Simmons responds he loses. Still, when all is said and done, Dodd does need to energize his base, and he won’t do it by mollycoddling Lieberman, who, by the way, will stick a knife in Dodd’s back at the earliest opportunity.

An Open letter:

Dear Senator Dodd:

I really wish you all the best. That’s why I wrote that resolution for which you thanked me so warmly at the event in Groton this past July.

But you make it so hard. The knock is that you’ve lost touch; that you’ve been in Washington too long. That’s one knock, anyway.

Lately you’ve tried. You’ve done good work on health care substance. You’ve made the right noises about credit cards. You’ve reached out to the folks back home.

But seriously, you need some folks back here in Connecticut you can call and talk to about what people back here are really thinking. You have a primary coming up, which you’ll probably win, but you won’t do yourself any favors if you turn off enough good Democrats to just squeak by.

Had you talked to anyone with their finger on the pulse among us real Democrats, you would never have said this about Joe Lieberman’s proposed treachery:

But Lieberman’s fellow Connecticut senator, Democrat Chris Dodd, who faces a tough reelection fight in 2010, dismissed the idea that Lieberman would incur any retribution.

“No, no, no. People are going to be all over the place,” he said when asked if Lieberman should be punished. “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded because somehow they have a different point of view than someone else is ridiculous. That isn’t going to happen.”

As Yoda might say: “Tone deaf he is”. We don’t necessarily need the red meat that Republicans serve up to their base, but that doesn’t mean we’re willing to eat shit. Many of us actually really care about health care. We understand that the public option is a poor substitute for a single payer system, but we also understand that no public option, or a weak public option, will make any health care bill into a giveaway to the insurance industry.And as Rachel Maddow demonstrated last night, Wall Street knows it too. We also understand that Lieberman’s professed reasons for opposing the public options are a mixture of bullshit and lies. We actually care about health care more than we care about whether you continue to occupy a seat in the U.S. Senate, or about your relationship with turncoat Joe.

We see Mitch McConnell putting out the word to his troops that a vote for cloture is verboten, and then we see that you are greenlighting Joe Lieberman’s treachery. The contrast is stark and it doesn’t sit well. In one minute you did more harm to the cause of health care than anything you might have done to help the cause in your committee. A closed mouth or a no comment would have been far more palatable, and probably more strategically useful.

It boggles the mind that you and your fellow Democrats got no prior commitments from Lieberman regarding exactly this contingency; it’s not like no one could have predicted it. It’s even worse when you grant a pardon before the crime.

Enacting a health care program that is not a sham will enhance your re-election prospects. Coddling Joe Lieberman won’t, particularly if by doing so you torpedo health care. If we end up with another Republican Senator from Connecticut, your supporters like me will be disappointed. Joe Lieberman will be ecstatic, make no mistake about it. It’s time for you to put the interests of Connecticut ahead of Joe Lieberman’s.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m in a mailgroup (in which I lurk only), the subject of which is the Dodd re-election campaign. Lately there’s been a bit of debate about whether it was wise for the Connecticut Democrats to go after Linda McMahon for her rank hypocrisy (hey, she’s a new Republican and she’s trying to fit in) or keep all guns aimed at the alleged front runner, Rob Simmons.

There are reasonable arguments on both sides, but it seems to me that it makes good sense to try to stir up some fratricidal warfare over on the other side. It’s bound to happen sooner or later, given the rather large egos of the players involved, so it might as well happen sooner.

There’s another reason. Simmons may be the darling of the Republican establishment, but that may not get him much mileage, particularly given the huge amount of money that his opponents will be throwing at him. He may, in fact, be as inevitable as Hillary Clinton.

Now, to you or me, it may not appear that there is a Barack Obama in the pack that can take him down, but we don’t think like Republicans, particularly like the extreme Republicans that populate the tea party fringe, which is a significant force in what has become a rump party. Those folks are pretty stupid, but probably not stupid enough to be satisfied with a “moderate” Republican just because he wraps his pocket constitution in a teabag. There’s no saying who can win a five or four way primary in which the winner may get no more than 35% of the vote.

I don’t care what the polls say. Except for Caluguri, they each have a shot. It’s not at all clear, too, that McMahon would be preferable to Simmons as Dodd’s opponent. The country is filled with involuntarily retired politicians who got to run against their preferred opponent.

Yes, Simmons is a dirty campaigner, but aren’t they all? Yes, he has a moderate image, but McMahon, at least, can out moderate him any day of the week. I don’t know much about her, but she can’t possibly be as personally unappealing as he is, or come across as more insincere. I remain convinced that he won in 2000 because he was not Sam Gejdenson, who unfairly or not was perceived as having completely lost touch with the district. His ability to raise money is limited. Moreover, he has a record that can be exploited when the time comes. She is tabula rasa, except for her business “achievements”, in which, by the way, she has demonstrated a remarkable ability to appeal to the very lowest in our society, precisely the people she needs to reach to win the Republican nomination.

So it seems wise at this point to go after all of these folks when opportunities arise. Now is the time to challenge her on her “PG entertainment” claims; a year from now might be too late to start. We can only hope that the Connecticut Democrats will take aim at Schiff as well. He’s the guy who will appeal to the tea party idiots. It shouldn’t be hard to come up with an approach that would turn the average voter against him, while solidifying his support among the tin hats. Now he’s an opponent we would really like to have. Who was the last person to get elected while advocating the abolition of Social Security? That’s not an issue to bring up right now, but there’s plenty to chose from that would undermine his standing with the rational, while leaving the crazies unfazed. Who knows, in a four way primary with three relatively mainstream types, he just might be able to pull in enough votes to win.

Sidenote: Oliver Willis, who can sometimes be obtuse, missed the boat completely on this one. The Democrats aren’t attacking McMahon for the content of her “entertainment”; they are attacking her for lying about it. She chose to take the issue on preemptively by labeling her product “PG” and “family entertainment”. No doubt she figured that if she repeated that claim often enough the characterization would stick. It’s the hypocrisy, Oliver.

The Daily Kos poll has Chris Dodd within four of Simmons and ahead of Foley, both of whom are largely undefined to most Connecticut voters. Three of the four Republican candidates are raising big bucks, so we can expect some bloodletting to take place on that side before the big show takes place. Gabe Rosenberg (whose emails I get since I’m a member of the Dodd Squad) says it’s a statistical tie with Simmons, since the numbers are within the margin of error. But that cuts both ways, Dodd could actually be even farther behind.

In any event, there’s every reason to think that the winner of the Republican primary will be a weaker candidate for the experience. Those guys, as we know, play rough, and there’s no reason to think that Simmons’ opponents won’t be beating him up on a regular basis. I could be wrong, but I think it’s going to be a contest to see who can tie the other guy most closely to George Bush.

By the way, I really don’t expect there to be much be way of fireworks on the Democratic side. Could be wrong, but I don’t think so.