I’ve got my answer somewhere still in my brain. But Margaret Carlson whipped out the perfect opinion piece, which I’ll post here:

Men in Tights Stimulate Family Values Party: Margaret Carlson

By Margaret Carlson – Aug 10, 2010

Bloomberg Opinion

Time was, simulating the sexual assault of a scantily clad wrestler on TV might get you hauled before the U.S. Senate, not elected to it.

Welcome to the times we live in, when the further you are from doing anything in the public interest, the greater the chance you will win a Republican primary.

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Why is it so hard to focus on the real issues that this state faces? Kevin Rennie writes a good story about how Linda McMahon waylaid Rob Simmons on her path to the Republican nomination and then just can’t help himself by going back to the Blumenthal story:

Everyone thought they knew the ubiquitous Blumenthal, but they discovered last week that they did not. That, too, happened with a push from McMahon. Her research team found evidence of Blumenthal’s serial embellishments of his military record and kindly tipped off The New York Times that he had claimed at times to have served in Vietnam. He did not. He was in the Marine Corps Reserves, stationed inWashington, D.C., and New Haven.

Really who can show that Blumenthal embellished his service record? Apparently, after a week, no one. The Daily Howler digs into the main stream media’s inability to deliver facts instead of the New York Times version of Chris Shay’s recollections of what Blumenthal has said. The Stamford Advocate turns up another speech in which Blumenthal was speaking about returning vets, again in 2008, and said, “I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support.”

Let’s just keep ignoring the subject of all these speeches. Blumenthal has been talking about supporting veterans. He cites may instances when we, as in the government and we, as in the people, have failed to treat the people who serve in the military well. It’s not just a vietnam era thing, look at how we treat disabled vets now.

The Joints Chief of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen:

In his April 26th address to The Council on Foundations, Adm. Mullen said veterans returning home today need help with education, training, medical care, substance abuse and mental health, saying community non-profits groups are the answer to meeting veterans needs.  ”I am not arguing in any way, shape or form that this should be the purview of our government because what I would like to see happen is community outreach to [servicemembers] and the government just be out of it,” Mullen said.

Disabled American Veterans disagree:

“It is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government because it creates disabled veterans,” said DAV Washington Headquarters Executive Director David W. Gorman.  ”It is the government’s solemn duty to care for and treat all veterans who are wounded and disabled in America’s wars.  It is unfathomable that Adm. Mullen would suggest such a plan, asking charities to provide the care now given so compassionately by the VA.”

“The VA has been providing care for disabled veterans for more than 80 years and today offers the finest medical care in our nation,” Gorman said.  ”The VA doesn’t dismiss veterans who need care.  It cares for veterans the rest of their lives.  It makes one wonder if Adm. Mullen believes it is best to return to the days when disabled veterans sold pencils on street corners and relied on the support of charitable organizations.”

“Ignoring the professional care of the VA and the responsibility of the federal government to honor the promise to care for disabled veterans shows a great lack of understanding about the needs of our newest generation of veterans,” Gorman said.  ”Our veterans have a place to turn, and that’s the VA.  Veterans service organizations like the DAV lend its support to veterans, but no philanthropic organization, nor all of them united, could undertake the health care services of the VA, which are budgeted at almost $50 billion in fiscal year 2010.”

But why talk about the real veteran’s issues here when we can blithely prater on about what politicians have to say about their opponents.

From the DOD.

Community non-profit groups are the answer to meeting veterans’ needs after they’ve left the federal system, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Council on Foundations, a membership organization that supports the management of grant makers, during a visit to troops on Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado.

Reminders of the need to do more for veterans, Mullen said, are visible from his home here.

“Outside my window at night, I can look out on the streets of Washington and see my peers from Vietnam who are homeless and who are sleeping on the streets at night,” Mullen said. “We did not do a good job of addressing the problems of those veterans from Vietnam.”

Community organizations are in the best position to identify veterans in need and to use agility and innovation to help them, Mullen said.

Mullen said he is happy that the American public supports today’s war veterans in ways they didn’t during Vietnam.

Calling today’s veterans “an American treasure,” the admiral said they go off to war without questioning the decision, yet “come back as changed people.” And, their families, he said, also are “changed in ways they could not have imagined.” Military leaders are just beginning to understand today’s veterans’ common-signature injuries, such as post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries, and amputations, he said.

“Yet to these families, their dreams haven’t changed one bit,” Mullen said. “They want to raise their families, they want to go to school; they want to own a piece of the rock.”

More than a million veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have returned to communities across America, and they need help with education, training, medical care, substance abuse and mental health, the admiral said.

The latest in the story about the story is this, Linda McMahon’s campaign is taking a bow, the whole video of the Norwalk event Blumenthal spoke at has him saying for the record he was a Marine Reserve and didn’t server in Vietnam, and the political reporters in Connecticut, according to Colin McEnroe, haven’t dug up anything that portrays Blumenthal as stating he was anything else but a Marine Reserve.

The biggest loser in this is likely Rob Simmons. It’s all McMahon and Blumenthal in the news, and his campaign is now buried under the media storm leading up to the crucial delegate influencing needed at the Republican State Convention. In fact, I’m pretty much going to call this as McMahon adds such a significant amount of delegates now, that his campaign is pretty much toast.

Today’s Connecticut media is atwitter with the NYTimes report that Dick Blumenthal, in their words: “record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.”

Really? Whatever you want to say about Dick Blumenthal’s service as Attorney General, it hardly takes some hack New York Times reporter to discover that Blumenthal speaks about veterans issues and often compares the vietnam era’s problems as something not to repeat with veterans serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Earlier the NYTimes was first to say that Blumenthal was suffering from “early bumps” in his campaign. And just how is the Times doing its investigative research? Well according to the Daily Caller, they use Linda McMahon!

McMahon campaign is saying they gave the story to the New York Times, according to a blog post written by a former Republican state lawmaker that the campaign has posted on their website.

The post, written by Kevin Rennie, who writes for the Hartford Courant and RealClearPolitics in addition to on his blog, says the Times story was “fed to the paper by the Linda McMahon Senate campaign.”

“The Blumenthal Bombshell comes at the end of more than 2 months of deep, persistent research by Republican Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign. It gave the explosive Norwalk video recording to The Times. This is what comes of $16 million, a crack opposition research operation and an opponent who … gave them the sword,” Rennie wrote late Monday.

Rennie confirmed in an e-mail to the Daily Caller Tuesday that he had written the post and that the McMahon campaign had told him they gave the story to the Times.

Now let’s cut to the chase. Who cares? Really, if this is the best issue this race can come up with then Connecticut is just doomed. I don’t care what Dick Blumenthal’s military service was. I do care that the next Senator from Connecticut will actually pay attention to the fact that Connecticut is getting shafted by the feds at every turn. Let’s see some stimulus dollars going to our crumbling infrastructure, oh wait. Or enlightened Hartford political flunkies think stimulus dollars should be used to balance the budget. They’ve already spent next years too. The grass on our state highways now tops two feet in Fairfield County. Yeah, I guess kicking up a fuss over 40 year old stories is more important than covering that.

If you were feeling disappointed with the the story line on the Senate race this year – if for you it lacked a certain kind of looniness that you find de riguer for a political season that aspires to hold your interest – help has arrived in the form of lower Fairfield County’s answer to Lyndon LaRouche.

Lee Whitnum has declared her intent to replace Chris Dodd. As evidence of her qualifications for the job, she cites a picture taken of her with Senator Dodd, and the fact that she found him very disappointing to talk to.

I have some pictures of myself with Chris Dodd, and they are much nicer than Lee’s. In a couple, it is just me and Chris Dodd. Therefore I am announcing my intention to seek the seat for United States Senator. My campaign will commence as soon as I can locate my signature zany hat.
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Was it really just four weeks ago that Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz was the apparent front-runner for Governor of the state of Connecticut? It seems like much longer than that. According to some wags, the long knives are out and, people are openly speculating her political career might be over. Its astonishing.

Not much to add to the news, so if you haven’t read about it, here is a synopsis:
Susan, just weeks after saying she was committed to campaign finance reform and would participate in public financing, reversed position and declared she was opting out almost in the same breath that she declared she was no longer running for Governor, but instead for Attorney General. Supporters and allies in Hartford with whom she had fought to bring about campaign finance reform went nuts. Susan got into a bit of a scrape with some reporter types while the cameras were rolling.

A blogger questioned whether Susan was technically qualified under state statutes to be Attorney General. Susan called up her friend Dick and asked him to issue a legal opinion saying of course she’s qualified to replace him. Dick’s office said they hadn’t gotten a letter from Susan or from the Secretary of State, and until they did they had nothing to say. Competitors and reporter types started calling Susan out on the specific issue of whether or not she can even be AG and, while they’re in the neighborhood, her resume is pretty thin either way. The SOTS wrote the AG a letter asking several questions, beginning with questioning the constitutionality of the statute in the first place. This is where it goes from bad to worse.

The AG issued an opinion today saying, amongst other things, that yes in fact the statute is constitutional and no, the AG cannot be issuing opinions as to whether or not Susan is qualified under the statute as a practicing attorney. The GOP state chair says that if none of the Democratic contenders, such as Susan, are willing to take the issue to court to get a summary judgement, you bet your ass he will. Meanwhile Susan tells at least one reporter that she thinks the AG agrees with her, in fact that the 15 page opinion confirms what she has been saying all along and, damn the torpedoes, she’s getting on with her candidacy.

Hands smacking foreheads all over the place. Columnist types are penning opinions and commenters on the blogs are issuing early political obits. Susan defenders fuming this is a bunch of crap, and a political ambush.

AG’s opinion here.
Christine Stuart with her story on it here.
GOP Chairman Chris Healy blogs here.
Colin McEnroe here.
And there’s just tons more out there.

Stay tuned.
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The fourth annual Democratic pizza and politics event hosted by Ted Hoffstatter, Martha Aasen and members of various DTCs from Westport, Weston, Wilton, Greenwich, and Fairfield. Despite the room being packed with a few hundred people it was still difficult to not run into someone running for governor, or had run for governor or would like to one day grow up and be governor.

As usual the Norwalk Democratic party provided the usual ample fodder for me write stories for the entire month of February. But what happens at Fat Cat stays in Fat Cat, so we’ll just have to wait how things all shake out. But in the interim, because I know you were all hoping for all those tantalizing morsels of� Norwalk DTC drama, let’s just say that the likelihood of someone challenging the Democratic party rules again, as in this will be the third time in 4 years, is pretty high. Not because of any one egregious action, but three separate events are rallying cries for change.� My response; just fix the rules and stop with this nonsense.

The battle for who will be the next chair of the Norwalk Dems is shaping up to be delightful. Of course that’s what precipitating all the drama between people who won’t let go, and people who want to be part of a real Democratic party. There’s a healthy amount of jockeying between the people who are rallying around the campaigns of the gubernatorial candidates, which as represented last night are Dan Malloy, Ned Lamont, Rudy Marconi and Mary Glassman. The prize, as it is in all these primaries, is who gets to pick the delegates that go to the state conventions and otherwise enjoy the potential of administration jobs in Hartford. A word of advice, an old bear is not nimble and rather clumsy in its movements, but an old bear lies in wait in the bushes and can ambush the more nimble with a swipe of� its paw. Just saying.

Meanwhile, the under representation by the “official” Norwalk Democratic party in their home turf, was noticeable.

Dick Blumenthal, as Senate candidate got the most attention. Jim Himes spoke passionately about getting things done in Washington. Nancy Wyman, Denise Nappier and Susan Bysiewicz spoke as well as Ned Lamont, Dan Malloy, Rudi Marconi, Denise Merril, Andy Garfunkel, Gerry Garcia, Mary Glassman and not in that order at all and I think I missed a few people.

Duffy, the little white dog, was rescued by his owner, for those of you who were concerned after the brief announcement made by Tony Ancona at the outset of the speaking program.

The Courant has updated their web site to reflect the inevitable, Blumenthal announces, officially, he’s running for the Senate.

Not really a surprise to anyone who was looking at Dodd’s internals, but Senator Chris Dodd is to officially announce what people have been privately saying for months. Dodd is retiring and will not seek another term as Senator. The whys, officially –the generic match up polls, Dodd’s controversies with Countrywide and his presidential aspirations are the main storyline. But the real storyline is the one campaign flunkies, particularly on the Democratic side are worried over.

In one short year, Democrats have gone from the brand that was unstoppable to the brand that everyone loves to beat up on. The problem, how can you go from hope and change, to 1000 page bills that do neither. As they say they say, the devil is in the details.

Roughly, 2010 is shaping up as an election that Democrats are worried about. Dodd’s internal polls had him struggling for support of the Connecticut base Democratic party flunkies. That number, for months just wouldn’t rebound. With a lack of support amongst Democrats, that placed emphasis on your average voter. For that, campaign flunkies looked to two election cycles to read the tea leaves. The 2006 Senate race between Senator Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont. The actual Republican candidate was irrelevant. Lieberman squeaked out a victory because at the end of the day, stalwart Democratic voters weren’t enough to tip the race to Lamont. Lieberman, despite being reviled by many Connecticut Democrats never lost his support amongst his base voters and moderate voters who weren’t engaged in the daily Democratic food fight.

The 2009 Connecticut municipal elections also added an inflection point to the political landscape. Connecticut voters were increasingly asking their elected officials, “what have you done for me lately,” and finding no answers voting for change, in a Republican direction. The significance of this is apparent when you look at high concentrations of registered Democrats who vote in Republican candidates. Danbury, Middletown, New Britain, Norwalk and Stamford.

Dodd’s retirement opens the race up for the eternal ever so hopeful Democratic candidates who have been coveting higher elected offices for years. The next totally unsurprising announcement will be that Dick Blumenthal will official announce he is seeking the Senate seat. His candidacy is virtually as guaranteed a win as a WWE wrestling match. Something Linda McMahon, one of the Republican candidates seeking the nomination for the Senate race should know about. Blumenthal’s success as a Senate candidate keeps open the scramble for all the constitutional officer seats that the next generation of Democratic candidates have been coveting.

That’s where the real pressure on Dodd’s internal polling was coming from. Supporting Dodd wasn’t in the best interests of too many Democratic candidate hopefuls, and in a roundabout way, Dodd’s forays into presidential politics took him off the incumbent game of keeping the home fires stoked.

In addition to Dodd, another �Democratic senator announced his retirement, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

With recent headlines bemoaning polls, and pundits�referring to Senator Chris Dodd as the embattled�Senator, it’s no surprise that the drum beats from Washington are beating the tune that very off the record–Connecticut Democratic officials have been privately saying for weeks, Dodd is practically unelectable and so ….

Sharira Toeplitz of CQ-Roll call makes the analysis: