My wife has urged me to link to this column by the estimable Dave Collins, one of the better columnists over at the Day. The Day carried much water for Rob Simmons, but Collins was not one of the water bearers, and he does a good job making the case in this column that Simmons is a typical “moderate” Republican, reliably in the pocket of his right wing masters.
Simmons comes to the race as a longtime Bush loyalist, who for years toed the line with the Republican majority in Washington on a variety of issues that put him at odds with mainstream political thinking in Connecticut.
He supported the war in Iraq, a decision he arrived at, he said, after reading thousands of pages of classified documents about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Never mind that, in the end, there weren’t any.
He talked down the Bush tax cuts for the very rich, calling himself a political moderate and fiscal conservative, then voted for them anyway. He also called himself an environmentalist and then voted for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He also voted for cuts to Medicaid and student loans, after he said he wouldn’t.
In the developing primary race against wrestling mogul Linda McMahon, Simmons has all but abandoned any pretense to moderate credentials, taking increasingly rightist, tea party positions on everything from stimulus spending to tax cuts.
As to the last point, we veteran Simmons watchers can easily predict that his plan is to pivot the moment he gets the nomination, distancing himself from the whackjobs, taking that teabag out of his pocket, and touting his moderation yet again.
Collins makes the point that Simmons is now out of his league. As I’ve said before, he “won” in 2000 because Sam Gejdenson beat himself, and he was planning on Chris Dodd doing the same this year.
Meanwhile, Merrick Alpert is getting a lot of free press in this neck of the woods. A front page article in the Mystic River Press (no link available) and a front page article in the Day. On first blush, the overriding impression is of a very delusional guy. He’s doomed to lose, but we may not have seen the last of him. This observation by Jonathan Pelto pretty much sums up the impression I’ve always had about him:
Some of Alpert’s less charitable observers say they’re not surprised to see him unwilling to wait in line. Jonathan Pelto, a former state legislator for whom Alpert worked as an intern while in college, then later when Pelto was managing the gubernatorial campaign of former state Rep. William Cibes in 1990, says Alpert was planning a political career from the beginning.
“He set out to build himself a resume, and you’ve got to give it to him,” Pelto says. “I remember him sitting around there (on the Cibes campaign) saying, ‘I want to serve in the military so I can build credentials so I can go after conservative candidates.’ He set out the things he needed to do to be the perfect candidate.”
In addition, I’m told that he’s charming. I’m also told by someone I trust (my wife) that I’m impervious to charm, so I can’t tell, but since I’m also told by my wife that he is charming, I believe that he is. He is also, as was Caesar, but with far less reason, ambitious. My guess is that we’ll be hearing from him again in 2012, and unless Joe Courtney decides to retire, he’ll set his sights on Lieberman’s seat. He’ll have to go through Chris Murphy, if not others, and my own thinking is that, charm or not, he’ll fall short again.
By the way, although the article states that he “has yet to file a quarterly campaign financing report”, in fact he has. Of all the announced candidates,his proportion of out of state contributions is highest.
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