In this day and age, it can be awful hard defending your allegiance to today's Republican Party. For Rep. Chris Shays, it proved so difficult that he's now masquerading as some Obamaesque Democratic/Republican hybrid. Witness:

That's right, lifelong Republican Chris Shays is leading his ads with an image of the Democratic presidential nominee.

Shays is a co-chair of McCain's campaign, of course.

And as for his apparent claims to transcend partisanship and other cool stuff like that...well, the campaign of Orange to Blue candidate Jim Himes would beg to differ. For it seems Shays, despite his bluster, in fact votes with his Republican brethren nine out of ten times - on the closest and most critical of votes.

Some examples:

- Voting against tax cuts for the middle class, including voting against extending credits for college tuition and voting against exempting middle class families from the Alternative Minimum Tax (HR 3996) - Voting against a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq (HR 1591) - Voting to allow torture by CIA interrogators (HR 2082)

He inflates his "bipartisan credentials" in other words, by siding with Democrats when he isn't needed.

On the web:
Jim Himes for Congress
Orange to Blue ActBlue Page

Rep. Christopher Shays (CT-04), the only incumbent Republican House member from New England, must have some polling numbers showing a combination of a very tight race against OrangetoBlue Democrat Jim Himes and some rather overwhelming numbers for Barack Obama in the district.

Why else would he, so early in the campaign, put up this misleading and disingenuous TV ad which opens with a picture of Barack Obama and a voice-over praising "The hopefulness of Obama...."  The ad began running yesterday on local feeds of national cable including MSNBC.

You know it's serious for Shays when there are two front page articles today, one in the New York Times and the other the Connecticut Post.

At 10:35 pm with more than 60% of precincts reporting in the Democratic primary for Connecticut's 4th Congressional District, OrangetoBlue candidate Jim Himes appears well on his way to a resounding victory with 90% of the vote in this primary election.

Jim Himes will now set his sights on the general election race for the 4th C.D. seat currently held by Rep. Christopher Shays.

Congressman Shays, a 20-year incumbent, is the last remaining Republican U.S. House member from New England.

In CT-04, we're lucky. We get to vote for a great candidate twice. The More half the equation is November 4th; the Better half is today, August 12th, primary day.

I'd be proud to support Jim Himes no matter where he was running (or against whom), but against Loony Lee Whitnum in this primary (and Both Ways Shays in the general!), it's twice as nice and twice as important. Two years ago we helped put Ned Lamont over the top; now let's give his good friend and one of his earliest supporters as resounding a victory as possible.

Jim would certainly be More--here's why he's Better. He left Wall Street to work for a non-profit foundation that builds affordable and green housing, has been an active Democrat (including Town Chair), and is running a people-centric campaign, the kind we've argued Dems should run. Most recently, he showed his true colors in soundly condemning the FISA "compromise" and would have made Connecticut's House delegation unanimous in opposition.

More below the fold...

(Jim, Mary, Emma, and Linley Himes voting this morning in CT-04.)

It's finally here: primary day in CT-04! Orange to Blue candidate Jim Himes is taking on "Hedge Fund Mistress" author Lee Whitnum in what is shaping up to be a very low-turnout contest for the Democratic nomination to take on Chris Shays in November.

There's a primary today.  It's a nuisance, top to bottom, pitting a candidate who has been vetted every which way and fervently supported by every legitimate body in the district and state against a person who has been trying to pre-empt and subvert the process at every turn and who espouses views that in many cases are very little short of bizarre, and whose personality has been described in similar words (and worse).  So why should it even matter that people show up and vote for Jim Himes today?

Oh, I suppose Gallup thought the headline was something else, but

A fairly large proportion of voters (35%) are unsure whether their member of Congress is a Democrat or a Republican. But among those who are aware, the data suggest that Democratic members might be a little safer this year than Republicans.

Now let that be a lesson to those of you who think the public really lives and dies on which way the Gallup tracker points to today.

But we know not everyone is paying attention.

[Pew: In the past week] Did you follow news about candidates for the 2008 presidential election very closely, fairly closely, not too closely or not at all closely?

30% very closely
34% fairly closely
21% not too closely
15% not closely at all
less than 1% don't know/refused

Or, to put it another way as pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal does:

These data paint a clear picture for me: Most Americans are paying far less attention to news about the campaign than most journalists, pundits and readers of this site. If we assume that all Americans are following the campaign as a jury follows a trial, we are in error.

In other news, voters are unhappy, the sun rises in the east, and the GOP candidate is running a negative campaign. And more Gallup:

In a year when approval of Congress has reached a new low, just 36% of U.S. registered voters say most members of Congress deserve re-election. This is among the lowest ratings Gallup has measured in a recent presidential or congressional election year.

But, as usual, MY congressman is okay, it's YOUR congressman who is screwing the country.

Fifty-seven percent of registered voters say the U.S. representative from their own congressional district deserves to be re-elected. That, too, is on the low end of what Gallup has measured historically for one's own member, slightly higher than the 1994 (54%) and 2006 (54%) readings, and somewhat better still than the all-time low of 48% in 1992.

Frankly, it's much more interesting that a third of the public can't tell which party their own rascal congressperson belongs to. I wonder if they live in districts where the Republican pretends to be a Democrat, at least at election time.

Progresssive columnist Sarah Littman, whose essays are carried in Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate (both publicatins owned by Hearst Newspapers), was fired by publisher John Dunster on Thursday for having written a column critical of Loony Lee Whitnum while having held a "meet-and-greet" for Jim Himes last year.  According to Littman, Dunster maintains that criticizing Loony Lee while having held a "meet-and-greet" for Jim Himes last year "compromises the integrity of the paper".  

What's the truth?  This is a right-wing rag that has been shilling for Whitnum for months.  In virtually every article about Jim Himes, Greenwich Time's political reporter Neil Vigdor has been boosting Whitnum's candidacy, covering up her whacky utterances and essentially portraying Whitnum as a courageous fighter against the Democratic machine.

But this appears to have been nothing but a pretext.  

Republican congressman Chris Shays (CT-04) has been permitted to host the annual picinic of the Connecticut Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Association (CT RPCV) at his house in Bridgeport next weekend, a politicization of the Peace Corps that I believe is blatantly wrong.  The RPVC organization is an official affiliate of the national organization, which is in turn a non-profit, non-political 501(c)3.  CT RPCV president Maureen Shanley has stated that official Peace Corps business will be conducted at Shays' house during the picnic.  Peace Corps recruiters have been invited to come from New York, and prospective Peace Corps volunteers have also been invited.  Holding an official Peace Corps meeting at the home of a partisan  elected politician, even when it is a  meeting of returned Peace Corps Volunteers, especially just a few short weeks before that politician stands for re-election, constitues a blatant, ompletely unacceptable politicization of the Peace Corps.  

The last remaining Republican from New England in the House of Representatives is Chris Shays from Connecticut's 4th Congressional District.  He is being challenged this historic year by a bright, young, aggressive Democratic candidate -- Jim Himes.

The last two congressional contests in CT-04 have been very close, but Republican Shays has prevailed by slim margins both times.

We say, "Not this time!"

You can meet Jim Himes and voice your views at a series of town meetings  called 17 towns in 17 days.

more after the break

(Cross-posted from the Himes blog. I am the Online Communications Director for Jim Himes for Congress)

The Himes campaign released its July Quarterly fundraising numbers yesterday. Here's the press release:

Faux moderate and Bush Neocon Chris Shays (Rep-CT's 4th district) will appear on John Dankosky's "Where We Live" live call-in show tomorrow morning (Friday, July 11) on Connecticut public radio's WNPR.  In Fairfield County, it is carried on 88.5 FM.  Please call in or email your questions for Both Ways Shays.  If you live or are travelling outside Connecticut, please send in your pointed questions by email.

Call during the Show:

(860) 275-7266

Or email questions and comments to:

wherewelive@wnpr.org

You have to get on the phone early, because Dankosky actually doesn't take many calls from listeners.  Shays is opposed by a great progressive Democrat- former Rhodes Scholar and Harvard grad Jim Himes.

Despite the hot and humid weather, hundreds of supporters joined Orange-to-Blue candidate Jim Himes yesterday for all or part of the 22-mile walk across the Fourth Congressional district from Greenwich to Bridgeport. Here are some more of the sights and sounds of the day (see part 1 here) - including a few words from DFA Chair Jim Dean at the stop in Fairfield:

Elected officials, bloggers, and reporters all joined the walk for stretches as well. The Greenwich Time was along for the start of the walk:

(I am the Online Communications Director for Jim Himes for Congress.)

Here in Connecticut, we're just about halfway through with Orange-to-Blue candidate Jim Himes' day-long, 22-mile, "Walk in a New Direction" from Greenwich to Bridgeport, and I just popped in our Norwalk office to upload some sights and sounds. Here's Jim at a stop this morning talking about why we're all walking 22 miles in the blazing sun today:

Contribute here to help us reach our goal of $22,000 online before the end of the quarter Monday night!

Just days after the Alaska AFL-CIO endorsed Orange to Blue candidate Mark Begich, fellow Orange to Blue candidate Jim Himes has been endorsed by the Connecticut AFL-CIO:

"Jim really understands the issues facing working families," said James Parent, Connecticut State Council of Machinists President and AFL-CIO Vice President. "Jim knows that we need to create good jobs and fight for the manufacturing jobs that we still have, to find real answers on healthcare and education, and to get out of Iraq. I'm convinced Jim will be a tremendous ally for working families, and we look forward to doing all we can to get him elected."

Connecticut's union density is lower than Alaska's, but this is an especially significant endorsement given his opponent. As DavidNYC's introductory post on Himes laid out, a number of Democrats and progressive groups have been giving protective cover to Republican incumbent Chris Shays. The League of Conservation Voters and the Human Rights Campaign have endorsed Shays. They would argue that he's a moderate Republican -- but should an LCV-endorsed candidate turn around and support coastal oil drilling? What kind of moderation is that?

The LCV and HRC might have gotten played on this one thanks to their desire to appear non-partisan damaging the causes they exist to support, but the Connecticut AFL-CIO obviously knows better and won't be supporting someone like Shays just because he only pisses on them 57% of the time (PDF) instead of 90% of the time.

Jim Himes is fighting a tough battle to take out the last House Republican in New England, and unfortunately, he's having to fight against people who should be on his side. But organized labor has his back, and, through the Orange to Blue list, so can you.

As DavidNYC noted in his Orange-to-Blue endorsement post of Jim Himes yesterday, Chris Shays has a history of pretending to be a "moderate" while voting again and again for Bush's policies.

This morning, Shays joined many in both parties in Congress by standing with Bush again on the FISA "compromise".

In fact, Chris Shays has been busy doing his best impersonation of a Blue Dog all week, voting for the war supplemental without timelines that passed yesterday before voting for the for the disastrous FISA bill that passed today.

We're off to the races in Connecticut, with one red-hot House race in the Fourth District, and two solid freshman Dems looking to consolidate their support in the Second and Fifth Districts. The GOP has nominated their slate of candidates, and are ready to start the official campaign.

CT-02: Democrat "Landslide Joe" Courtney won election last year in one of the narrowest races in the country. Courtney edged Republican Rob Simmons by just 83 votes, a margin which is actually not unusual for the district. Former Representative Sam Gejdenson won reelection in 1994 by just 21 votes, and lost his seat to Simmons in 2002 by under 2,000 votes.

Courtney is a solid Democrat on national issues, and an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War. The district leans strongly Democratic at the presidential level (Gore won it by 14 points, and Kerry by 10), but it has placed a heavy emphasis in recent years on electing Representatives with the ability to deliver for the district, most particularly with regard to the submarine manufacturing base in Groton. The sub base is the district's largest employer, and Gejdenson lost in 2000 amid rumors of the base closing.

With the prominence of the submarine base in mind, the GOP recruited the former base commander, Captain Sean Sullivan, as their candidate. While this sounded promising for the Republicans initially (as much as any candidate would in a D+7.6 district in a Democratic year), the highly touted Sullivan has proven to be a fundraising dud. He has just over $100K on hand (and that number isn't increasing very quickly, as he pulled in a grand total of $3,000 in three weeks in April).

Courtney, meanwhile, has over $1.2 million on hand to go with a fine record for his first term in Congress. Rob Simmons had some nice words for our man Joe:

Former Republican Rep. Rob Simmons, who in 2006 lost narrowly to Courtney, the one-time Vernon town attorney, belittled his former opponent.

"If John McCain becomes the next president, who do you think he'll turn to for advice in Congress?" he asked Republicans gathered in Willimantic. "A town attorney from Vernon or a decorated Navy captain with more than 20 years of distinguished service?"

Yeah, well...that ain't happening.

CT-04: For the third year in a row, CT-04 is shaping up to be one of the hottest races in the country. Republican incumbent Christopher Shays, who narrowly won reelection with 52% in both 2004 and 2006, is the last Republican Representative from New England left in Congress. After spirited challenges the last two cycles from Diane Farrell, Shays is now challenger by Democrat Jim Himes.

Himes, 41, is a former Goldman Sachs vice president and Rhodes Scholar. He has proven to be a terrific fundraiser, with over $1.1 million cash-on-hand as of last filing. By comparison, 20-year incumbent Shays has roughly $30,000 more in the bank than Himes. Himes is also an early addition to the DCCC's Red to Blue list.

Shays has a long-standing reputation as a moderate, and he's certainly proven to be a survivor in this Democratic-leaning Bridgeport-based district. The Fourth was Lieberman country in 2006, which may well have helped Shays win reelection that year. Still, Himes is a truly formidable candidate, and even after the close calls of the last two cycles, Shays may yet be in for the race of his life.

CT-05: By PVI, the Fifth is Connecticut's least Democratic district (D+3.7). Republican Nancy Johnson represented the area for 24 years until 2006, when she was defeated by Democrat Chris Murphy.

Murphy, 34, has had a remarkable record of political success, particularly for such a young guy. Fresh out of college at 22, he managed the campaign of Democrat Charlotte Koskoff, who ran against Johnson in 1996 and came within one point of unseating her. After graduating from law school, Murphy then defeated a 14-year incumbent to win a seat in the State House, then captured a Republican-held seat in the State Senate before defeating Johnson quite badly in 2006, winning by 12 points after  a series of nasty attacks by the Johnson campaign. Since his election, Murphy has proven to be a popular Congressman and an excellent fundraiser, currently sitting on a $1.5 million war chest.

The Republicans hope to take this seat back with State Senator David Cappiello, who has been forced to run away from his unpopular president in this Dem-leaning district. Needless to say, that hasn't gone over especially well with his based (though he and Bush appear to be getting on fine, as Bush held a fundraiser for Cappiello at Henry Kissinger's house a few weeks ago).

It appears that the line of attack will be to paint Murphy as a DC insider who is soft on terrorism-indeed, it appears that that is already what they're doing. As DemFromCT notes, however, it's unlikely to work:

This is a winning strategery for McCain and Republicans... why? It's not 2002 any more. The inept Republican fear campaign played badly for Nancy Johnson in 2006 and Rudy Giuliani in 2008. Why would it work better now?

Alas, it's going to take a Democratic win in November to purge the system of the idea that Republican fear and smear still work. Chalk that up to yet another reason to vote Democratic.

Hear, hear.

The Republicans are dreaming big about CT-05, but I don't think this is the year they're going to stop Chris Murphy's meteoric rise.