Malloy, Bysiewicz in close money race

The two Democratic frontrunners in their bid for governor are very close in money raised by the end of the 2nd quarter, the Hartford Courant reports.

The two Democratic front-runners for governor — Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy — are locked in a tight campaign money race.

Malloy, the longest-serving mayor in Stamford history, eked out the fundraising lead in the second quarter with slightly more than $144,000, compared with more than $141,000 for Bysiewicz. Overall, Malloy has raised more than $272,000, placing him ahead of Bysiewicz, who has raised $239,000.

The fund raising number for the third Democrat in the race, Jim Amann, weren't available by press time, but a spokesman for the campaign recently assured us that they are in good financial shape.

Governor Rell has raised $90,000 so far, and has $70K on hand. But of course, she isn't being faced with a primary challenge yet, so there isn't the urgency that the Democrats are dealing with.

Gubernatorial Candidate's Websites:

James Amann

Susan Bysiewicz

Dan Malloy

I'm always late to the party

But this just struck me as so bizarrely funny that I felt compelled to post it.

If you aren't one of the million or so people who saw it already, this video uses a clip from the riveting film "Downfall" which portrays Adolf's massive reaction to the news of Micheal Jackson's untimely death:



Boy, that Hitler, he loved his Jackson 5!

OK, for those at home keeping count, this is reason #297 for "Why I'm Going To Hell".

Peter Schiff almost, nearly, sorta announces Senate run

Peter Schiff, economist, author and stock broker, recently made a Youtube video from his Las Vegas suite at Freedom Fest (don't ask) in which he discusses the Minimum Wage law (he apparently doesn't like it much).

Schiff also talks about his likely-soon-to-be-announced Senate bid against Chris Dodd. Basically, he just stops short of committing in this excerpt below.

BTW, that weird jumpy edit right when he begins to discuss his run was from his original video (link above):



This may be the most interesting quote from the video (and by "interesting", I mean "horrific"):

"...I'm not promising anything specific if I win other than freedom from government. Other than going to government to put a stop to everything they're doing and to try to restore sanity to an insane Congress and to try to be a roadblock." (emphasis mine, of course)

I can imagine this playing very well with the Teabaggers and the Paulites (I specifically avoided calling them "Paultards" because that really seems to make them apoplectic with rage, and I'm in a good mood this morning, so I'll try to be nice.)

I'd love to interview this guy. If his soon-to-be campaign staff sees this, please email me and we'll set it up.

I'm so sure that he'll run I'm gonna put my own money up to prove it! I hereby offer to bet the first comment respondent a sum of $7.25 (which happens to be the Department of Labor's Minimum Wage as of July 24, 2009) that Mr. Schiff will announce his candidacy by Labor Day, 2009 (Labor Day, get it?)

Mr. Schiff's pre-exploratory website is Schiffforsenate.com (and that's possibly the very first URL I've typed that has three "f's" in a row).

The Hill's blog confirms Himes fund raising

Late yesterday "The Briefing Room" (one of the blogs of "The Hill", which reports on Congress) confirmed the fund raising numbers with the Himes campaign that I posted yesterday.

From The Briefing Room:

First term Democratic Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.) raised $520,000 in the second quarter and has hauled in over $1 million since Election Day last year, according to a Democratic source familiar with his fundraising.

Himes will report $760,000 cash on hand in his second quarter Federal Election Commission report.

[..]

UPDATE: We have confirmed Himes' fundraising with his campaign team. We also found out that Himes is not in debt. Rather, $35,000 of the $365,000 (CTBob: the blog originally said it was current debt) was debt Himes paid off in the second quarter. The remaining $330,000 are loans Himes made to the campaign last year and has transferred to his 2010 campaign.

The supposed Republican challenger to Jim's seat may be John McKinney, the minority leader in the senate.

However, McKinney hasn't made an official announcement to run yet, and judging by the recent frenzied fund raising by hopeful GOP challengers to Sen. Chris Dodd, there may not be a whole hell of a lot of Republican dollars even left in the 4th District to mount a viable challenge to Himes at this point. Unless McKinney comes out of the blocks with some astounding numbers (if and when he does announce) he will have a long and difficult road ahead of him.

Maybe It's Just Me....

But did anyone else see the first three minutes of NBC Nightly News just now with Joe LIEberman talking about US government Web sites that had been hit with DNS attacks? Uh, sorry...we know he has no credibility when it comes to talking about hacked Web sites.

Himes surpasses $1 Million raised

When Rep. Jim Himes (CT-04) posts his 2nd quarter numbers with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) next week, he'll reach a significant milestone nearly 16 months in advance of the 2010 election.

Over $ 1,000.000 raised!

Himes has raised around $520,000 this quarter, and his campaign has cash on hand of over $760,000.

This means the total amount he's has raised for his 2010 re-election campaign is nearly $1.1 Million!

The final FEC filing deadline for the 2nd quarter is July 15th, so by next week we'll have official confirmation on these very significant numbers. This bodes extremely well for Jim and his campaign for re-election next year.

UPDATE: More confirmation of the numbers here.

Senator Franken

That didn't take too long, did it?



And about that fabled number "60" that has everyone so excited: I confidently predict that the Democrats won't be able to defeat even a single Republican filibuster threat without the help of one or more GOP senators. Sorry, but in order to have a realistic and workable all-Democratic majority, we'll need to pick up two or three more seats in 2010. At least.

First Lieberman Challenge 2012

Imagine my surprise when I was listening to Anderson Cooper 360 last evening and heard this...

ERICA: Al Franken will be sworn in as senator from Minnesota tomorrow. The "Saturday Night Live" alum arriving on Capitol Hill today, where he promised to work day and night. Franken defeated Republican Norm Coleman after an eight-month recount battle.

And it looks like Alec Baldwin may want to follow in Franken's footsteps, the actor telling "Playboy" magazine that he's seriously considering running for Congress. But he did acknowledge his opponents would have plenty of fodder to use against him.

At one point -- he's a native New Yorker, Anderson -- said he wouldn't mind moving to Connecticut to run against Joe Lieberman, but that probably won't ever happen, he said.

COOPER: We'll see, Erica.

We'll see, indeed. Boys -- be sure and go get the issue of Playboy so you can check this out, and report back.

Dr. John Orman (1949-2009)

Very sad news today.

Dr. John Orman, professor of politics at Fairfield University, and first registered member and organizing chairman of the Connecticut For Lieberman party, passed away suddenly yesterday at the age of 60.

I'm going to search through my archives for video and photos that will help tell the story of this witty and gentle man.

He will be dearly missed.

(Video below from the post-election organizing rally for the CFL party, January 18, 2007)



And in the photo below (from early 2006) there's several blogger-types you might recognize, when we created this visual nod to Dr. Orman for being one of the first Democrats to actively challenge Joe Lieberman for his senate seat.

Sh*t always happens when I'm on vacation!

It never fails.

There's always something big going on when I'm off sailing. Here's a look back at some of my past vacations:

2006
2006: Joe Lieberman foresees he'll be toast in the upcoming senate primary against Ned Lamont, so he forms his very own political party (the Connecticut For Lieberman party) so he can hang on to his cushy seat for another term. I was on my boat in Port Jefferson harbor and heard the news via Jane Hamsher.

Then I turned off my phone and continued grilling our swordfish steaks while the sun set.

2007
2007: Pres. Bush commutes Scooter Libby's sentence, but doesn't pardon him, which would have then made it so he would have had to testify before Congress if called. A brutally cynical move that would have upset me a lot more if we weren't having so much fun in Northport.

2008
2008: Joe Lieberman has been campaigning for McCain like a rat in heat; and while doing so he was loudly heckled at one appearance, according to CBS Radio. My frustration at not being able to blog about it nearly ruined my enjoyment of our secluded anchorage at Eaton's Neck.

But not quite.

Not even close, actually. The water and sky were both so blue that it looked more like the Caribbean than Long Island Sound!

...and here it is, the sh*t that happened this year...

2009: Sarah frickin' Palin

Big news, to be sure; and ripe for much blogitorial mocking.

...but just look at that awesome sky below!

Is it any wonder why I decide to spend so much time on the water?

Besides, Kirby filled in for me this week, and she did a terrific job! Thank you so much, Kirby!

WTF?

Mike Huckabee got it right this morning when he said that the point of having a news conference is to answer questions, not to create more. But this is Sarah Palin, after all, and the rules of planet earth do not apply. Here's the official transcript of her remarks.

Andrew Sullivan has done an amazing job tracking Palin and her lies -- here is his roundup of the commentary on Palin's move. And the Daily Beast has a nice summary page, too.

And. don't miss the threatening memo from the Palin attorney warning news organizations about what they can and cannot report. I missed the part that said that the soon-to-be-ex-governor of the 49th state becomes the arbiter of what is free speech and what is not. Hey, it's a holiday weekend and I am not being as diligent on the research as I might otherwise be.

And if you haven't read it yet, Todd Purdum's profile of Sarah Barracuda in Vanity Fair is not to be missed.

Because I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough and Gosh, Darn it, People Like Me

I must say, I do love the sound of "Senator Al Franken." I listened to his radio program on Air America via XM radio and was blown away by the depth of his knowledge and his analysis of the issues of the day. Not only that, but he received the Merit Award from the USO earlier this year.

The USO-Metro Merit Award was presented to comedian-politician Al Franken for his seven overseas tours to visit deployed troops and numerous volunteer hours he’s given to wounded warriors at local military hospitals.

Now, I probably missed it when I took my blogging sabbatical, but how many trips to the deployed troops in a war zone have Rush and Sean and Bill-O made? Do let me know.

Married to the same woman, no hint of sexual scandal and nothing about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Sounds good to me.

I think the Senator-elect got it right when he said that he is not looking at being the 60th Democratic senator, but rather, the second senator from Minnesota with a lot of constituent work that needs to be done since Sen. Klobuchar has been on her own since January.

Hmmm....a Senator who is concerned about constituent work...what's that, Joe?

It's True! Separated at Birth

Thank you so much, Spazeboy!

Bye Billy

I cannot remember a week with more celebrity deaths than the past 7 days -- Ed McMahon, Farrah, MJ, Fred Travalena, Gayle Storm and on Sunday, one Billy Mays.

If you have not caught it yet, his show with Anthony Sullivan, with whom he worked in direct response marketing -- Pitchmen -- is terrific. It is a behind the scenes look at how they choose products, test market them, design the pitch, film the demo, and then test the commercial in key markets and time slots to see which products ultimately get the thumbs up or the thumbs down.

Mr. Kirby teaches marketing in high school, and has used the show to teach his students the marketing process. The thing I really liked about Billy was that he was in on the joke. He could goof on himself and laugh all the way to the bank. What a shame he didn't get much time to enjoy it.

Here are a couple of laughs for you
ESPN 360 commercial
Appearances on Tonight Show