Connecticut Local Politics

1. Another week, new faces in the race for Governor. Oz Greibel plans to announce he’s in the Governor’s race tomorrow. Griebel, who hails from Simbsbury, was the chief executive office of BankBoston’s Connecticut subsidiary from 1993 to 1999, and has been with the Metro Hartford Alliance since 2001.
2. According to the Greenwich [...]

[Read more →]

Former U.S. Congressman Christopher Shays has an e-mail out asking supporters to help him defray the cost of his continuing operation today:
It’s been many months since we shared the news that our campaign ended with a deficit because of embezzlement of funds by my campaign manager. The generosity of many friends and supporters has enabled us to [...]

[Read more →]

Both the NY Times and Hartford Courant blogs are reporting on Senator Chris Dodd’s latest employment of technology for a listening initiative – seeking advice from constituents on health care reform via YouTube.

Viewers can share their ideas and vote on others at the YouTube Senate Hub channel.
“This is an opportunity to discuss [...]

[Read more →]

Politico is reporting that former U.S. Congressman Christopher Shays is supporting his former colleague Rob Simmons in the race for U.S. Senate.  Shays said this:
“I will be supporting Rob Simmons. We’ve had lots of conversations, and he’s been a close adviser to me and a close friend,” Shays said. “I will hopefully be making a [...]

[Read more →]

CQ Politics is running a story listing the nearly 1/4 of the House (104 members) who helped clients for a lobbying firm (PMA) with ties to Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) secure earmarks in the 2008 Pentagon spending bill. Here’s the full list.
Rep. Chris Murphy is on it. He helped to secure $400,000 in earmarks for [...]

[Read more →]

The Stamford Advocate reports that amended campaign finance reports that detail what Shays says is embezzlement on the part of his former campaign manager, Michael Sohn, were to be filed tonight with the FEC.
Here are the eleven reports filed this evening:
Covering Period 01/01/2007 Through 03/31/2007
Covering Period 04/01/2007 Through 06/30/2007
Covering Period 07/01/2007 Through 09/30/2007
Covering Period 10/01/2007 [...]

[Read more →]

One of the things I’ve been meaning to do is update the 4th district map, which had an error on it in Shelton. The town originally made me (and others) scratch their heads by going for Jim Himes by about 500 votes. I found this strange because Shelton is not usually a swing town, and [...]

[Read more →]

This story keeps getting worse. Not only may have a longtime employee of Rep. Chris Shays stolen money from his boss, he may have used it to gamble, say several state Republicans. If that’s true, he must have been racking up some massive debts. He makes over $100,000/year.
A grand jury has been empaneled to [...]

[Read more →]

According to several GOP sources, Shays campaign manager Michael Sohn is the one suspected of committing fraud against his boss:

Two Republicans familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the investigation is pending said the suspicions involve Michael Sohn, who was Shays’ campaign manager for the past several elections. Sohn left [...]

[Read more →]

FEC post-election reports were due yesterday. Here are the results:
2nd District
Big re-election winner Rep. Joe Courtney ends the race having raised $92,651.95 between 10/16 and 11/24. He raised $2,335,216.49 net (excluding refunds) for the whole cycle. Of that, he spent a total of $1,673,550.54 (excluding offsets) for the whole cycle, and had $677,332.08 cash on [...]

[Read more →]

“My days of running for public office are over.”
Rep. Chris Shays, retiring from politics.

[Read more →]

A question that people are going to be asking this morning is: Does Barack Obama have coattails? The answer, at least in Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District, is yes.
Here’s the map (based on unofficial results):

Let’s compare this to 2006 and 2004:

2006

2004

Himes actually won with far fewer towns than Farrell carried in 2006–in fact, he managed to [...]

[Read more →]

9:28: Himes is doing extremely well. He has outperformed Farrell in Stamford and other places, and things do not look good for Chris Shays right now.
9:12: Himes doing very well but lots of suburbs still outstanding. Courtney is winning just about everywhere, this race is essentially done. He has already won several towns Simmons won [...]

[Read more →]

The Himes campaign sent out a release claiming that Rep. Chris Shays was being a little less than truthful in a mailer the Shays campaign sent out, which claimed Shays had never voted to privatize social security. Here’s the mailer (image courtesy of the Himes campaign–click to expand).

The Himes campaign had this to say about [...]

[Read more →]

Chuck Todd has a state-by-state election guide up tonight, and he correctly notes that there’s really only one congressional race worth watching in Connecticut: the 4th. He has this to say about what may be coming up in 2010, however:
But even if Shays loses, don’t write his political obituary yet. Chris Dodd is going to [...]

[Read more →]

Barack Obama took some time out to record a radio ad for Jim Himes (mp3 here). It’s a good spot, and given that Obama is likely going to win in the 4th district, a smart move by Himes.
As for Chris Shays and his party’s presidential candidate, they are perhaps on less friendly terms after Shays [...]

[Read more →]

Noted left-wing water-carrier for the Democrats, the New York Post, explains why the Realtors have pumped more than $800,000 into CT-04:
The riskiest type of government-backed mortgages could soon return to haunt the country.
Rep. Christopher Shays, the embattled lawmaker in a close race for his seat in tony Fairfield County, Conn., is quietly pushing to overturn [...]

[Read more →]

Via SSP, the GOP’s “Death List” ranking the races where their incumbents are in trouble. Shays in CT-04 is in category three which is a toss-up.
That sounds about right to me, but a Republican operative gave his thoughts on this list to the Politico:
One well-connected Republican operative told Politico that the list, if anything, [...]

[Read more →]

In another bad sign for incumbent Congressman Chris Shays, Larry Sabato at UVA’s Center for Politics has just changed the rating on this race from Leans Republican to Leans Democratic, interestingly choosing to skip “Toss Up” altogether.
Every week it seems to get worse for House Republicans. As we will demonstrate below, we have expanded [...]

[Read more →]

This afternoon,the Himes campaign sent out a press release about Chris Shays’ failure to file 48 Hour Reports with the FEC. 48 Hour Reports are required to be filed between 20 days (by my calculations, October 15) and 48 hours before an election. They require a campaign committee to list any contributions of [...]

[Read more →]