Connecticut Local Politics

Interrupting today’s regularly scheduled programming of blue-tinged maps with news of Congressman Larson’s battle to move up in the Democratic leadership…
From The Hill:

A senior Democratic aide said that Van Hollen has ruled out running for caucus Vice Chair, but is �seriously considering running for Caucus Chair.�
That is likely to spark an immediate fight for the [...]

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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 [...]

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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, [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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I prefer my remixes with a different beat…
Here is the ad that Shays ran featuring Democratic Republican Independent NYC Mayor Michael “Term Limits are for Suckers!” Bloomberg in 2006:

And his good friend cared so much about his re-election in 2008 that he rushed back to Connecticut to film another ad let them use the [...]

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I have no idea what effect this might have on the race, but it can’t hurt…

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The Cook Report calls this race a “toss up” and now a UCONN/Hearst Newspapers Poll of 501 likely voters confirms that the race for the 4th CD between incumbent Republican Chris Shays and challenger Democrat Jim Himes is a dead heat, with each having 44% support. 10% were still undecided, and of the likely voters [...]

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On Wednesday night, the Himes campaign had a conference call with the 4th CD DTC chairs where the campaign touted the results of their new internal poll. The internal (remember: internals can be taken with a grain of salt - size to taste) shows Himes up 7, 48-41. Of course we don’t know [...]

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The subscription-only Cook Report has released an assessment entitled “GOP Staring at 2008 Worst Case Scenario” in which they’ve written the following:

Once again, this is a political environment in which top-tier GOP candidates can lose, and second and even third-tier Democrats can break into contention late in the game. We are releasing ratings changes in [...]

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With nearly 220,000 new voters having registered since the beginning of the year - nearly 50,000 of those in the first half of October alone - the number of registered voters in CT has now surpassed the 2 million mark reports Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz.

“By all accounts 2008 has seen unprecedented interest in our [...]

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SSP has the scoop, from the subscription Roll Call:

Jim Himes (D): 48
Chris Shays (R-inc): 45
(MoE: �4%)

This poll is better:
SurveyUSA for Roll Call = Not an internal or quasi-internal poll
Undecideds at 7% = Passes the smell test for 20 days out (Presidential undecideds for the CD at 4%) - In fact, if there is anything to [...]

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The mailer mentioned below that made Chris Shays (candidate for Beanbag champion of the 4th CD) want to go all Gollum on Jim Himes in the debate yesterday was apparently a DCCC mailer, and not a Himes campaign mailer:

Shays told the Bridgeport audience that one mailing by congressional Democrats took a vote out of context [...]

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Senator McCain went after Senator Dodd yesterday in comments from the stump:

“And it is already a matter of record that members, Democrat members of Congress fought against reform and it is a matter of record and hearings that they said everything was fine. Senator Obama a year ago said that these kinds of subprime loans [...]

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In the last three weeks or so, you have been treated to three polls of the 4th Congressional District. At least you think you have. In reality, we have not seen a single fully reliable poll of the 4th yet this cycle - instead, we have had what amounts to 2 internal polls [...]

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From Ted Mann, in The Day:

But at his publicly available page on twitter, the networking site, Andrew Powaleny, the campaign spokesman, wrote a message to a friend, sounding a different tune:

just read a poll that shows my candidate trailing by about 25%, told you it was a lost cause! 06:01 AM September 30, 2008
…
I’m going [...]

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Two things jumped out at me when I looked at the Secretary of the State’s Press Release with the new voter registration numbers, one serious and one fun.
First, the serious:

Of the nearly 69,826 new voters between the ages of 18 and 29, 30,792 registered as Democrats, 30,683 registered as Unaffiliated and 7,876 registered as Republicans. [...]

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The NRCC reserved more than $17 million in ads for 26 races in two bunches in the last two weeks (here and here) (compare to the $53 million for 55 races reserved by the DCCC). Conspicuously missing from the NRCC’s reservations? CT.
As I noted last October, the NRCC is in dire financial shape [...]

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Instead of the expected ~400 people, almost 2,500 filled the auditorium, the overflow cafeteria, and the adjoining hallway to hear speeches from Connecticut Democrats. CTBob and CTBlogger shot videos of which I will post a few below.
Here are the pictures I took:

Here is DeLauro going after Shays again:

Courtesy of CTBob.
Here is Jim [...]

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The Connecticut State Democratic Party’s Presidential Kick-Off Rally will be held today at 11:00am at the Hamden Middle School in Hamden, CT. Directions are available at the above link (don’t be alarmed that the poster says that the rally is at the town green - the Middle School is the rain location, it is [...]

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