This is the oped I authored that appeared last week in Greenwich Citizen (sorry, but it's not been placed online):

"Lord, I want a timeline!", Republican Congressman Chris Shays blurted out toward the end of a rambling speech on the floor of the House early this month.  But does Mr. Shays really want to establish a firm timeline for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq?  If one looks closely at his pronouncements on the Iraq War, the answer is: "doubtful."  

I woke up Wednesday morning just like any other day at around 5 am, stumbled downstairs and poured myself a cup of coffee. Then, like any normal morning, I grabbed my MacBook and went outside to read my mail, smoke, and wake the hell up.

I was greeted with more than a thousand message in my inbox.

The 4th district of Connecticut has been the focus of a variety of discussion among the blogs in the week after the midterm elections.  One important point is that Christopher Shays is now one of the few remaining "moderate" northeastern Republican congressional representatives.  It was his moderate tag in a fairly Democratic region that placed a target on Shays's head going into this election.  In 2004, Diane Farrell came within four points to taking down Shays.  Yet in 2006, in what we now can recognize as a moderate wave year, Farrell only managed to cut that down to one point in a 51-48 defeat.  What does the future hold for Connecticut's fourth congressional district?  More importantly, should Ned Lamont now enter into the equation for 2008?

Still deliriously happy over the course of events over the past 24 hours...and still bitterly disappointed in my fellow Nutmeg State residents over their failure to see through Holy Joe's shtick.  The re-election of Joe Lieberman has consequences, not the least of which is that a promising newcomer named Ned Lamont fell short of a position wherein he could have done so much good for Connecticut and the nation.

So yeah, despite the overall good news, I'm looking for silver linings in my own backyard, which also re-elected Chris Shays, though by a margin of victory even smaller than the one he eked out in 2004.  

It's not too hard to connect these dots, and urge Ned Lamont to run for Chris Shays' Congressional seat in 2008.

I can't seem to get the tune "Oh, Happy Day!" out of my head this morning. It is a happy, happy day. Though my candidates for Congress, Ned Lamont and Diane Farrell, both lost, I am proud to have pulled the lever for them both. They both put up a good fight, and they both helped change the dialogue and discussion regarding the issues. What's important about this day is not their loss, but their win.

Why did Diane Farrell (D) lose the 2006 congressional election to Chris Shays (R) in the CT-4th district? Let me posit some answers to this mystery.

So, I just came back from voting in my sleepy little Connecticut town located in Fairfield County.  Here's a few observations, but most important is that there is a RECORD VOTER TURNOUT.

As I wrote HERE, I was home in CT last week and, in addition to walking precincts for Ned, I worked with the Diane Farrell campaign for a couple of days. Diane Farrell has got to beat Chris Shays on Tuesday. I urge anyone in CT to do what you can to make this happen.

It was a huge week for Diane with a Reuters/Zogby Poll showing her with a 7 point advantage and a new endorsement from The Stamford Advocate, no bastion of liberalism they. But this is not the time to get complacent in this key potential pick-up district.

My report from the ground over the flip...

The Greens have bowed to "spoiler problem" fears in CD4. Should Democrats count on this kind of thing happening.

The Greens got nothing in return like a promise to work on Instant Runoff Voting. With IRV people can rank choice their ballott rather than only being able to vote for 1 person.

Connecticut Green Party Release from Joint Press Conference of Green Party Candidate and Democratic Party Candidate

Below are excerpts from the press conference.

I spent the afternoon with Act Now NY getting out the vote for Diane Farrell in the Connecticut district currently held by Iraq War dead-ender Chris Shays.  I hope his service in congress is in its last throes.

It's not just that Chris Shays is not the moderate and not the independent maverick that he claims to be.  It's the fact that he is just plain dishonest about his record.  Take a look at his claims and the truth about his record.

In a big almost poster-sized mailing I just received Shays makes the following claims:

Four Our Seniors:  

He claims to have been "an early advocate for the Medicare prescription drug benefit".  Of course, that plan is nothing but a major subsidy to the pharmaceutical industry and the government is paying double for the ten most popular drugs compared with the negotiated prices that the Veterans Administration is paying.  President Clinton set up that system.  

I have researched voter turnout for the past couple of midterm elections and there is no reasonable way to predict what voter turnout in Connecticut will be next Tuesday. In some states in the northeast mid terms see about a 40% turnout. While in the midwest states such as Iowa and Minnesota have seen turnout as high or above 55% in recent election cycles. Your guess might as well be as good as mine. Here I go making my prediction. Agree or not agree, this is what I think will happen. (As a side note the internal polls have this race under 4-5 points. So I believe some of these numbers I predict are fairly accurate.)

Here we go again. For the last two weeks the local Connecticut and main-stream-media have been touting the ridiculous 17 point lead Joe Lieberman has over Ned Lamont. At the same time this has painted a false impression among uninformed voters about the actual closeness of the Ct-Senate race. As an individual (who is a political junkie) with an economics degree the 12 point Q-poll lead for Lieberman boggles mind my mind. You can believe whatever poll you want to believe and take them all with a grain of salt. However, the only poll that matters is the final result on election night.

All right New Yorkers. This is it. The home stretch. The final countdown. Taking back congress is within our grasp and YOU can help make it possible. actNOW is a PAC that mobilizes New Yorkers to work on grassroots activities on behalf of progressive candidates. actNOW has been working all summer long with three terrific candidates to get out the vote. So far we've made over 20,000 calls and knocked on over 14,000 doors; we've identified lots of potential voters and now we need to get them to show up at the polls and vote!

This weekend it is crucial that we talk to as many voters as possible and remind them that if they want to bring troops home, preserve our social safety net, restore fiscal discipline in DC and take our country back, then they need to VOTE! Even if you only have an hour to give consider spending some time helping one of the following fine candidates get elected:

With only one week left until the mid-tern elections, I take this moment to remind everybody that out-here in Connecticut we have a golden oppoturnity to put our country back on the right path.

At the same time we have to make sure that we get every person we know out to vote on election day. The competitive problem of voter turnout was visibly shown in primaries across the country over the last couple of months.

This poll is a reverse of last month, where Shays had a 4 point lead.  I wonder if Shays' bizarre comments in recent weeks have had an effect?  You know, where he brought up Chappaquiddick in response to Mark Foley, and then said Abu Graib was a sex ring and not torture.  

It's within the Margin of Error, but the trend is good!

Good news abounds in Connecticut for Congressional races today, it seems (I posted on Chris Murphy earlier today in an open thread) Hopefully, we can get some good news in the Senate in the next day or two.

Shays has been fairly moderate over the years, but is still part of the problem in that he votes for John Boehner (and, Tom DeLay before that) for Leadership.

The heat is ratcheting up on Connecticut Republican congressman Chris Shays, the so-called "champion of campaign finance reform".  Even Hartford Courant is beginning to question the circumstances surrounding Shays's "misplaced" disclosure form that detailed the trip he took in 2003 that was funded by a front group created by Grover Norquist and headed by a protege of the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

In today's edition Hartford Courant's David Lightman writes: "For more than three years, the House (of Representatives) clerk had no record detailing that Rep. Christopher Shays took a 2003 trip to Qatar partially funded by a group run by a protege of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff - even though Shays insisted he disclosed the trip shortly after returning".  Further on Lightman notes that "Shays' form was not posted - because, according to the clerk's office, it was not received until Friday afternoon at 3:09, a few hours after The Courant asked about the form."

CQ Politics has a nice roundup of the three House races (maps are on the flip), with the most difficult battle for the GOP being CT-04.

But this past Wednesday, the Times added to the long list of concerns faced by Shays, who is embroiled in his toughest race since he won the seat in a 1987 special election: The paper, widely read in the mainly affluent New York City suburbs that make up the 4th, endorsed Shays' Democratic challenger, former local mayor Diane Farrell, who has forced a tossup race in the rematch of the 2004 contest that she lost by just 4 percentage points.

The Times' endorsement editorial took issue with Shays' positions on immigration and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, while praising Farrell as "smart, articulate" and taking positions that are "well thought out."

While there is little evidence to suggest that newspaper endorsements sway elections, the Times' abandoning of Shays is the latest development in a campaign that threatens to fracture Shays' long-time coalition that has included independents and Democrats as well as Republicans. A recent University of Connecticut poll showed the race a dead heat, with each candidate favored by 43 percent of respondents.

Shays' support for President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq and, until recently, his continued support for the administration's overall policy there, were already political problems for him in 2004, when Bush lost the 4th District by 6 percentage points to Democrat John Kerry. Local dissent over the war has grown since.

Shays increasingly has been distancing himself from Bush, issuing a call for a gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq and sharply criticizing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He has rebuffed accusations from Farrell and other Democrats that these positions constituted an election-year conversion.

But Iraq has continued to crop up in ways that have not been helpful to Shays' campaign. He drew considerable attention and some criticism recently for describing the controversial conduct of U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib as constituting a sex ring and "something less than torture."

And Shays has been faced with questions about a report, published in The New Republic magazine, that he failed to disclose the financing of the first of his 14 visits to Iraq since the war began in March 2003 -- a trip the next month that made him the first member of Congress to visit Iraq after the war was launched.

The report said Shays traveled to Iraq after attending a conference in Qatar that was paid for by The Islamic Free Market Institute, a non-profit organization founded by conservative activist Grover Norquist, who -- the magazine noted prominently -- had ties to now-convicted lobbyist turned influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

Shays' Washington office put out a brief statement asserting that the lack of disclosure was "the result of simple human staff error."

Shays has not done well under pressure, but he's recently leaned on Mike Bloomberg, the NY mayor, to try and pull a little commuter love back from the Times endorsement.

Next in line is Rob Simmons-Joe Courtney in CT-02. Also endorsed by the Times, CT-02 is on the other side of the state and is one of the two rural areas included in the KY survey written up yesterday.

Simmons served in Army intelligence during the Vietnam War and later was a CIA agent, a résumé that pleases many in the conservative Republican base, while his support for abortion rights and some other breaks from GOP orthodoxy have enabled him to reach across party lines. And in this campaign season, he has sought to distance himself from President Bush and the GOP leadership.

But a poll conducted by the University of Connecticut and released on Oct. 20 showed Simmons leading Courtney by just 46 percent to 44 percent, and the 2-point difference was within the survey's margin of error.

Courtney has hammered Simmons on his support for the Iraq war and the prescription drug law, Medicare Part D, which was mainly favored by congressional Republicans over Democratic accusations that it is a boondoggle for pharmaceutical companies. He has also taken aim at the White House-backed energy bill, passed last year, arguing it was written for the benefit of oil companies.

This one's a real nail-biter.

Last is CT-05 with Chris Murphy-Nancy Johnson. Also a rural area included in the poll, this is a slight Dem-leaning region, but Johnson is an institution after 24 years in the house. OTOH, people are pissed at Medicare Part D and think she's a nice lady who doesn't live in CT any more - she's a creature of DC.

Democratic nominee Chris Murphy, who has served in the state Senate for eight years, is young and energetic. He also points to his focus on health care -- hoping to counter the district franchise long held on that issue by Johnson, who chairs the influential Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health.

Murphy has emphasized attacks on Johnson for her leading role in passing the Medicare prescription drug benefit law. He hopes frustration with Medicare Part D among some recipients will give him an edge among the district's considerable senior citizen population.

Like many Democrats around the country, Murphy has also sought to tie Johnson to congressional GOP scandals and the war in Iraq.

But Johnson, who like most successful Connecticut Republicans is a social moderate, is no easy target. An independent poll conducted by R.T. Strategies showed Johnson leading by 52 percent to 46 percent.

There could in theory be a hidden vote here, if Latinos turn out. They are not happy with immigration policy.

The Latino vote is thought to favor Democrats in most key districts and states. In Connecticut, for instance, an estimated 75 percent of Latinos voted for Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry in 2004. Nationally, the Pew Hispanic Center found about half of Hispanic voters identified themselves as Democrat, while 27 percent said they were Republicans and 24 percent said they were independent.

Connecticut's 4th District is seen as an important Latino battleground. Shays and Farrell are locked in a duel that polls say is tied, and Latinos make up 10.7 percent of eligible voters, the highest percentage of any district in the state.

The Latino vote could also be crucial in competitive races in the 2nd District, where it represents 3.5 percent of the vote, and in the 5th, where 8.2 percent of eligible voters are Latino. Of the 26 House races rated toss-ups by the Roll Call newspaper, the three Connecticut contests are among the top eight in percentage of Latino votes.

All three seats could go either way. Chuck Todd has picked CT-02 at his bellwether, though CT-04 is the most likely to flip. I'll be following this and the CT Senate race election night here at Daily Kos.

Update [2006-10-28 16:39:36 by DemFromCT]: Speaking of CQ, here's their Special Report: The Battering Ram and the Bulwark, the last of their lay of the land articles.