Rob Runs From His Record
“So What’s A Left-Wing Republican To Do, When A Viable Opponent Surfaces And Offers Voters Something Better? Attack. Starting In October, You Launched A Series Of Increasingly Nasty, Petty, And Often Baseless Broadsides Against McMahon. …You Are Rob Simmons. And You Look Very, Very Desperate.”
D. DOWD MUSKA BLOG
By D. Dowd Muska
You are Rob Simmons. And your candidacy is in trouble.
Once, you thought your path to the U.S. Senate was clear. It’s not as if you had any serious competition for the Republican nomination. Connecticut’s GOP has been attempting suicide for as long as political observers can remember. It’s almost as if top Republicans are implementing a plan to offend as many core constituencies as possible: taxpayer and limited-government activists, education reformers, small-business owners, social conservatives. As a result, the party has hobbled itself at the state level, and produced an awfully shallow talent pool. Three others sought the nod to run against Dodd. But they didn’t have your name recognition, ability to raise money, and buddies in Washington.
Polls showed you dominating the field. But then Linda McMahon, a woman with a business background, compelling narrative, and millions in the bank decided to seek “your” nomination.
That meant trouble. Because at a moment when fiscal responsibility and economic growth are the dominant issues — and many Nutmeggers support the tea-party movement — a record like yours is no asset.
The National Taxpayers Union reports that in six years in Congress, you backed 370 bills to hike spending — and only 13 to reduce federal expenditures. That’s a ratio of 28 to 1. Guess you were telling the truth in 2004, when you said, “I go to schools, I go to factories, I deliver checks. I like to go out and deliver the money… . I just find that this becomes second nature to me.”
That philosophy thrills the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known by its infamous acronym, ACORN. In the first and second sessions of the 109th Congress, you favored the corrupt group’s agenda 56 percent of the time. Only one “Republican” in both legislative chambers voted with ACORN more frequently.
The economy is stuck in neutral, but unlike McMahon, you lack private-sector experience. You’ve spent your whole life in government. And it shows. Union bosses have been some of your most committed supporters. And you’ve returned the favor. In Congress, you twice cosponsored the “Employee Free Choice Act.” The misnamed bill would gut secret-ballot elections for union “representation.” No less a wishy-washy business “leader” as Jack Welch believes the legislation is likely to “introduce intimidation and coercion by labor organizers, who, after a long slide into near-oblivion, finally see a glorious new route to millions of dues-paying members.” If EFCA is enacted, the former General Electric executive wrote, it “could trigger a surge in unionization across U.S. industry — and in time, a reversion to the bloated economy that brought America to its knees in the late 1970s and early ’80s and that today cripples much of European business.”
Your record on energy is also disturbing. More petroleum supply on the world market would help reduce the price of gasoline. But you oppose drilling for crude in a portion of the Godforsaken Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — just as you fought Broadwater Energy’s reasonable request to build a terminal for liquefied natural gas in Long Island Sound. And the hoax that is manmade “global climate change”? You’re a believer. Along with fellow eco-radicals Edward Markey and Henry Waxman, you cosponsored a cap-and-trade bill in 2006.
Linda McMahon is not a social conservative, but compared to you, she’s Phyllis Schlafly. Planned Parenthood is a fan — you’ve got the enthusiastic approval of pro-choice extremists, who respect your multiple votes to preserve partial-birth abortion.
So what’s a left-wing Republican to do, when a viable opponent surfaces and offers voters something better?
Attack.
Starting in October, you launched a series of increasingly nasty, petty, and often baseless broadsides against McMahon. Some were laughers — the accusation that your opponent is not sufficiently committed to “conservative fiscal principles” was hilarious. Others, such as McMahon’s “failure to vote more than twice in her life before entering this campaign,” were downright dishonest. Since 2000, which is as far back as records in the Greenwich registrar’s office go, McMahon has voted in five elections. Another accuracy-starved claim, that McMahon has refused to rule out an independent campaign, is easily belied. On several occasions, she has said she will support the GOP’s primary winner.
Distracting voters with McMahon’s alleged sins must please Connecticut’s Republican hacks, who, desperate for jobs and relevancy, always stuck by your side, no matter how you voted. And going negative sure beats having to defend your ultra-liberal record.
You are Rob Simmons. And you look very, very desperate.