Connecticut Local Politics

Fresh off raising a woefully inadequate amount of money, replacing their campaign team to move “into a new phase with a new team”, and then missing an FEC filing deadline, the Sullivan campaign is now fumbling press releases.

Here is what I received from the Courtney campaign at 1:00pm:

Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT) and House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Duncan Hunter (R-CA) joined together to offer a bipartisan amendment to the Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would authorize an increase of funding for the Virginia-class submarine program to $722 million.
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Last week, Congressman Courtney offered an amendment during the Seapower Subcommittee markup of the NDAA to increase funding by $300 million and would move construction of an additional submarine secured last year from 2011 to 2010, allowing for a staggered build rate of 2-1-2 between 2010 and 2012. The Hunter-Courtney amendment, passed today on a unanimous and bipartisan voice vote, would add an additional $422 million for a total of $722 million to allow for sustained construction of two submarines a year in both in 2010 and 2011.

At 3:00, I received this from the Sullivan campaign:

JOE COURTNEY’S DOUBLE TALK ON SUBMARINES EXPOSED

Today, the House Armed Services Committee voted to boost submarine production starting in 2010, but Courtney’s name was mysteriously scratched as sponsor of the amendment.

Today’s amendment would boost national security, and would bring more jobs to Connecticut. Why isn’t Courtney’s name listed as the sponsor of the amendment?
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At the last minute, Courtney decided not to offer the amendment. The job of promoting submarines was left to Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California.

“Courtney’s actions are outrageous,” said Sean Sullivan, Republican nominee for Connecticut’s Second district. “Courtney says he is for submarines, but if not for Duncan Hunter of California this boost in Submarines wouldn’t have happened. Here we have an important amendment that boosts national security and would bring needed jobs to Connecticut, and Courtney doesn’t drive the issue. Joe Courtney is the worst kind of politician. He says one thing and does another. “

The problem (aside from getting the date wrong, really, how hard is that)? None of the Sullivan release is accurate! And I actually mean none of it (date included, sorry, I couldn’t resist). The amendment is called the Hunter-Courtney amendment. And Courtney’s amendment bailed out a previous version that was sure to fail. Rep. Courtney is the best kind of politician – the kind that gets things done. Oh, and he can send out a press release that has a passing relation to reality.

Rep. Hunter introduced the original version of this amendment, but unfortunately, he gored the wrong ox to pay for the submarines. His original amendment would have taken the money from the Marine Corps’ top priority – and since that wasn’t going to happen, this amendment going forward would have effectively killed the bill. Enter Rep. Courtney with a substitute amendment, replacing Hunter’s original, that took the money from something that no one apparently cared about as much. That became Hunter’s amendment.

Here is the audio from the debate (audio file). The sub talk begins at about 1:00:00. Note Rep. Hunter refer to his amendment as “derived from Rep. Courtney’s amendment” at about 1:00:30. At 1:03:50ish – they work out that the Amendment is the Hunter-Courtney Amendment.

At 1:04:30ish, Rep. Courtney rises to speak to explain that the line through his name on the Amendment, should not lead anyone to believe that he doesn’t support the Amendment, since he does. My understanding is that Hunter put the line through Courtney’s name in order to introduce the amendment.

Note to self, next time engrave and hand deliver it to the Sullivan folks before they write something embarrassing about it.

At this point, the Sullivan campaign has become both difficult to watch and difficult to look away from. Their new direction seems to be startlingly similar to the previous direction – except that it is more of a swirl than a direction and it seems to be heading directly down the drain.