When he last ran for the U.S. Senate, Dick Blumenthal, fresh
from a two decade stint as Connecticut’s Attorney General, was facing a deep
pockets opponent in World Wrestling Entertainment’s former CEO Linda McMahon. It
was generally supposed by the fortune tellers in the media that Mr. Blumenthal
would easily defeat Mrs. McMahon without breaking sweat – and so he did. Mr.
Blumenthal’s current re-election bid features a reversal of fortune, pun
intended.
Mr. Blumenthal is himself a multi-millionaire, the eighth
richest member of Congress, according to a list of multi-millionaires compiled by Roll Call.
Of the top ten richest members of Congress, only three are Republicans.
Mr. Blumenthal’s net worth, an embarrassment of riches at
$52.39 million, comes to him through a fortunate, pun intended, marriage; his
wife is the daughter of a New York real estate mogul, the owner of the Empire
State building, among other glittering properties. The source of Mr.
Blumenthal’s political resources, however, arises from other springs. Even
before the start pistol on his re-election race has sounded, Mr. Blumenthal
will enjoy insuperable advantages over his Republican Party opponent.
Just to begin with, Mr. Blumenthal is the incumbent in Connecticut’s
upcoming Senate race, and deep pockets campaign contributors cautiously bet
their dollars on probable outcomes. All the present members of Connecticut’s
U.S. Congressional Delegation are progressive Democrats, the last moderate Republican
member of the Delegation, Representative Chris Shays having lost his bid for
re-election in 2008. The last Republican U.S. Senator was liberal gasbag Lowell Weicker,
the father of Connecticut’s income tax, whose Americans for Democratic Action liberal
rating in Congress was 20 points
higher than that of U.S. Senator Chris Dodd.
So far, the only Republican who has announced a bid for Mr.
Blumenthal’s seat is August Wolf, an
investment advisor for a national asset management company.
As of July 2015, Mr. Wolf had $240,000 in his campaign kitty, while Mr.
Blumenthal had managed to acquire $3.3 million.
Mr. Blumenthal is a
Democrat in a failing state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly by
a margin of two to one. Many Connecticut editorial boards, some of which still
endorse candidates for office, are reflexively – and occasionally fecklessly, as witness the Hartford Courant’s endorsement of Elizabeth Esty over Andrew Roraback -- progressive or pro-incumbent. Like one-percenters hoping to purchase the
golden ears of electable politicians, they tend to cast their lots in favor of
probable winners; it’s good for business.
During his first campaign for the Senate, Mr. Blumenthal
agilely slipped at least one noose. In several different venues, Mr. Blumenthal
had said or strongly implied that he had served as a marine in the Vietnam War.
In truth, Mr. Blumenthal, having exhausted his draft deferments, found a quiet
corner far from whizzing bullets in Washington D.C., where he spent the war
years distributing Toys for Tots as a part of his military duties.
Somewhat like prospective Democratic Party candidate for
President Hillary Clinton – whose candidacy Mr. Blumenthal and other big wig Democrats in the state have fulsomely endorsed – Mr. Blumenthal, Connecticut’s
first consumer protection Senator, is Teflon coated. Mrs. Clinton’s several
Achilles heels so far have not impeded her steadfast march to the White House.
The fortunes of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation
are to some extent tied to presidential races. While Mrs. Clinton almost
certainly will be the Democratic Party nominee for President, her success will
depend upon fickle fate and the persistence of bad habits. All predictions at
this point are pointless, but Mrs. Clinton is more than usually pock-marked
with misfortune, much of it of her own making. Democrats appear poised to
replicate Mr. Obama’s two Presidential victories. During his two terms in office,
Mr. Obama was able to cobble together what can only be described as an eccentric
majority. Mr. Obama since has lost voltage and popularity -- the result of
reality piercing his hardening presidential bubble – and it will be recalled
that Mrs. Clinton, as Secretary of State, was closely allied with his more
spectacular foreign policy failures. Libya is an Obama-Clinton replication of George Bush’s “failed” policy in Iraq, and the blood of those slain in
Benghazi, including American Ambassador Christopher Stevens, still cries out
for justice.
To wrest a Congressional seat from an incumbent, an opposing
party must command the three “M’s” – Money, Means and Message. In Connecticut
politics, opposition money is hard to come-by; the left-leaning media is
unsympathetic to Republican moderates and aggressively hostile to Republican social
conservatives; and the Republican message is generally muted by irreconcilable
factions within the party.
Then too, fickle fate is too fickle to be a dependable
political ally.
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