Tagged: Blumenthal

Can Government Create Jobs?

The economy has certainly drove home the idea of job creation as a campaign theme. Candidates are falling over themselves with campaign promises that they will “create jobs.” Naturally the tea party is out front and center with the idea that government can’t create jobs, with people like Linda McMahon sayign that government doesn’t create jobs, entrepreneurs do.

Maybe the third time’s a charm for Connecticut Democratic senatorial nominee Richard Blumenthal who has had a hard time offering a clear answer about government’s role creating jobs

When his opponent Linda McMahon asked him in a debate Monday night “how do you create a job,” he offered a meandering reply explaining jobs can be created “in a variety of ways by a variety of people.” He went on assert government can help preserve jobs by providing more capital to small businesses, tax policies that promote job creation and intervention by government to help promote American-made products.
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The Best Political Campaign Analysis (in song)

All good political campaigns are like a story–they have a beginning, middle and end. Fortunately we are in that last bit of the cmapign stories of our Senate and Gubernatorial races.  The days of mailers and lawn signs are soon to end, but the lack of fun in these races is such a huge turnoff that maybe we need some campaign soundtrack mojo. In song. To keep the load times to a minium, I’m not going to embed the videos, but here’s my analysis of the campaigns thus far:

Linda McMahon

Take a Chance On Me-ABBA
One Way Or Another-Blondie
Can’t Buy Me Love-The Beatles

Dick Blumenthal

Careless Memories- Duran Duran
Slip Sliding Away -Paul Simon
A View To A Kill-Duran Duran

Dan Malloy

I Will Survive- Gloria Gaynor
Change The World-Eric Clapton
Every Day I Write The Book-Elvis Costello

Tom Foley

Who Are You-The Who
Tom Sawyer- Rush
Upside Down- Diana Ross

The Senate Is Broken

The New Yorker has a great article on the many ways that the Senate is broken. We can spend out time debating the merits of Linda McMahon buying a senate seat versus Dick Blumenthal representing the worst in attorney general meddling. But in the end, the choice on who you want to represent Connecticut in the Senate should about the character of the person who will actually show up and do the job they were elected to do, like actaully read bills and attend meetings and hearings and do their best job doing so. And what is going on in Washington now? Read on after the jump.

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McMahon Win Says What Exactly About Connecticut Republicans?

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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Blumenthal Story Lingers On, Veterans Still Fight On

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.

Blumenthal Story Is Fizzling, NY Times Looking Bad

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.

NY Times Really Musn’t Like Blumenthal

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.

Never breaking stride, Malloy makes candidacy official.

One week ago today, Dan Malloy officially became a candidate for Governor.
Video:


Malloy continued his torrid pace of appearances, appearing on WFSB’s Face the State, answering questions from panelists Daniela Altimari of The Hartford Courant, Ted Mann of The Day, and host Dennis House.
Video (thanks to ctblogger):


Malloy’s Sunday appearances included a conversation with Connecticut Newsmakers host Tom Monahan.
Video (thanks again to ctblogger):


There’s more after the jump…
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Subplot added to Senate race.

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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Opinion finds AG statute constitutional; Bysiewicz declares victory.

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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