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.

Today, Hillary Clinton added one superdelegate while Barack Obama added two. As always, Democratic Convention Watch is tracking them as they happen.

Ohio add-on delegate William Craig Bashein announced support for Clinton, while Mississippi Democratic party chair Wayne Dowdy and Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut endorsed Obama.

Courtney's was the only district in Connecticut that was won -- in a narrow margin -- by Sen. Hillary Clinton. So, unlike the rest of the state's congressional delegation, he had held out on a presidential endorsement, leaving himself among the last remaining superdelegates.

His choice this morning, which spokesman Brian Farber said he had come to within the last two days, as Kentucky and Oregon decided their primaries, leaves only one Connecticut superdelegate undecided: Nancy DiNardo, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party.

So a slow endorsement day ends with Obama having gained one over Clinton.

Short and sweet.  Courtney of CT endorses.

Courtney Endorses Obama
By Jesse A. Hamilton on May 21, 2008 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Though he had said he was going to wait until the last of the primaries was over, Rep. Joe Courtney decided to instead make his pick for a Democratic candidate clear this morning, chosing Sen. Barack Obama.

Courtney's was the only district in Connecticut that was won -- in a narrow margin -- by Sen. Hillary Clinton. So, unlike the rest of the state's congressional delegation, he had held out on a presidential endorsement, leaving himself among the last remaining superdelegates.

His choice this morning, which spokesman Brian Farber said he had come to within the last two days, as Kentucky and Oregon decided their primaries, leaves only one Connecticut superdelegate undecided: Nancy DiNardo, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party.

Courtney makes his pick as Obama is singificantly ahead in the delegate count and the Democratic National Convention is just three months away.

[There goes his Clinton Christmas card.]

http://blogs.courant.com/...

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.

I've been a member of this community now for almost 2 years. Well, actually, I've been coming to this site for about 3, but only started participating for about 2.

Over that time I've seen members of this site open up their wallets for fundraising drives time and again. I remember Kos' blue majority appeals prior to the 2006 midterm elections and I've seen us rally behind special election candidates like Bill Foster in Il-14.

But nothing I have seen compared to the incredible outpouring of support that I witnessed yesterday.

I had my first introduction to the Hilltop Brigade, a grassroots organization founded in Connecticut by Stephanie and Penelope, a couple of constituents of Rosa DeLauro (D-CT03). The organization was actually developed, with Congresswoman DeLauro's blessing, to help put volunteers in the streets and knocking on doors. But more than that, it was so 'safe' districts, such as DeLauro's, could essentially 'lend' volunteers to districts that had closer races.

There has been much discussion in the netroots  recently about the potential power of the Youth Vote in Iowa, or its lack of power. While I clearly have a side in all this. My most important side is the truth.  There is much discussion about the potential of  Youth of Vote. This diary is about an actual example of undisputed Youth Power. Congressman Joe Courtney would not be a Congressman today were it not for the power of Youth Vote  at the University of Connecticut.  I was not a part of the effort to turnout Young Voters on the Uconn Stores Campus but the numbers speak for themselves.

When I was five years old, walking through the supermarket with my mother, Joe Courtney (now Congressman Joe Courtney, CT-02) didn’t seem like such a big deal.  I was already annoyed that I had to shop with my mother while I was almost certainly missing some important cartoons at home, and so when Mom had to stop and chat with Joe and introduce me to him, it was not a big deal.

Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02) and the House Education and Labor Committee recently passed the College Cost Reduction Act, which lowers interest rates on Federal Stafford Loans and increases the amount of the Pell Grant significantly.

The 2006 elections were a watershed year not only for the Democratic takeover but for youth turnout as well.  The fact that the Education and Labor Committee put student aid at the top of their agenda shows the influence young voters now have in shaping policy.  

The Committee released a video recently on their legislation featuring none other than Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02). Courtney's 83 vote victory came as a direct result of record youth turnout in 2006.  The University of Connecticut, located in Courtney's district, experienced an 800% performance increase over 2002.  Here's their video:

Cross-posted from my blog, An Enduring Democratic Majority.

Last week, while our most senior Democratic leaders in the House and Senate were running away from their earlier committment to troop withdrawal, it was our Freshman class of 2006 that stood most steadfast against removing the timetables. Of the 140 "No" votes that day, 12 of themcame from Representatives who recently won their seats from incumbents of another party.

One man in particular I wanted to highlight was my Congressman, Joe Courtney:

Good news:

Former Rep. Rob Simmons (R) has accepted a job as Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell’s Business Advocate, making it highly unlikely that he will run for his old seat [...]

His decision indicates that Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., who defeated Simmons in the closest race of the 2006 cycle, will have a smoother re-election ride than many anticipated.  This has traditionally been tough terrain for national Republicans; President Bush only won 44 percent of the vote here in 2004.

On Thursday, Kagro X posted here about the swearing-in of the new Congress.  As he made clear then, he was far from the only blogger who attended some part of the day's events.  I thought it would be nice to take a look around at some other blogger reporting on the day - because I want to draw out the feeling of celebration, because I want to celebrate the local bloggers who covered individual races, because this is one where on-the-scene reports from bloggers can give us something we don't remotely get from traditional media sources.

Connecticut bloggers had a strong showing.  CT Blue is most focused on Joe Courtney, but has pictures from a few events.  Connecticut Local Politics has a run-down of the whole day, focusing of course on the Connecticut delegation, and a hilarious post on the Lieberman party.

Finally, we had to go in search of the Senator. We found him, surrounded by well wishers and waited our turn to say hi. While we were waiting, we witnessed the following exchange:

Town DTC Chair: Hi Senator, I'm Town DTC Chair from Town and -

Joe Lieberman: [sour look] We got killed in Town. All is forgiven.

DTC: [semi-sarcastically] I forgive you too, Senator.

The sight of Senator Lieberman forgiving a town chair for working to elect the Democratic nominee (you know, doing his job) warmed my heart, so I was glad to see the town chair give it back to him a little and "forgive" him for running as a petitioning candidate.

He diaried it at Daily Kos, too, but PsiFighter37 wrote about (and has pictures of) Patrick Murphy's event at Progressive Wave's PA-08.  

But when Patrick came back, there was a wild amount of cheering for him. He quickly thanked all of us for showing up, and he choked up a little from the sheer emotion of the moment. We had all worked as a team to get him to Congress, he said, and he planned on continuing to work with us as a team now that he was here. Slowly but surely, he began making his way through the crush of people who had been waiting to greet him and get their picture taken with him. There were so many people that the crowd had spilled over to the front of the office of Patrick's neighbor, Rep. John Larson (D CT-01).

MyDD has some video of Murphy, and of Howard Dean.

MyDD also covered the netroots party, which was the only event I was able to make it to.  It was crazy of me to go to Washington just for one party, but it was worth it to get to experience even a tiny corner of a day like that.  Friday before I left I stopped by Paul Hodes' office, to soak it in a little - PsiFighter and CT Blue posted pictures of the nameplates by the doors of Patrick Murphy and Joe Courtney's offices, and I too had that moment of just stopping and looking at that sign and grinning, because we did it, and now our long-shot candidates have their names outside offices in Cannon and Longworth; Paul Hodes and his staff have windows with a view of the Capitol dome.  This is a thing to be celebrated not just on that one day, even as we turn our attention forward to the hard work of translating electoral victory into good policy.

Are there other on-the-scene reports we should read?

Update: In comments, Kagro X points to a number of other good reports.  His comment here links like 15 different Politics TV interview clips.  And Taylor Marsh has coverage here, here, and here (though some pictures she has captions for have evaporated I guess).  And great coverage from 2 Political Junkies, a Pittsburgh blogger I'd never heard of and am glad to have gotten the chance to read - there was running commentary through the day but here are the permalinks to a few of the posts: an interview with Jason Altmire,  observations on photo ops and on Keith Ellison, and some concluding thoughts.  But reading his whole day of coverage is nice if you don't mind the scrolling.

Talk about every vote counting.

A roller-coaster recount that uncovered vote-counting flaws in several Connecticut towns gave Democrat Joe Courtney a narrow victory over three-term Republican Rep. Rob Simmons on Tuesday.

Courtney won by 91 votes instead of the 167-vote margin counted on election night, according to results tabulated by 65 town clerks and reported to The Associated Press. Nearly 250,000 votes were cast.

Chris Shays in CT-04 is the last Republican congressman in all of New England.

He can switch parties if he wants to survive. Because otherwise, we're taking him out in 2008. And he won't have Joe Lieberman helping him with GOTV.

The AP has it.  91 votes....

A roller-coaster recount that stretched nearly a week and uncovered significant vote-counting flaws in at least three communities came to an end Tuesday night, confirming Courtney's general election victory over Rep. Rob Simmons.

Recounts in each of the district's 65 towns gave Courtney the nod, although his election-night margin of 167 votes narrowed to 91, according to results tabulated by town clerks and reported to The Associated Press. Nearly 250,000 votes were cast.

.....

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz planned a news conference Wednesday morning to announce the results.

Bit more below.

I hope Burner runs again in 2008:

U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert campaigned on his willingness to buck his Republican Party.

Monday, he eluded the GOP's nationwide losing streak by apparently beating back a fierce, expensive challenge from Democrat Darcy Burner.

"I am a little surprised it was as tough as it was, because of the inexperience of my opponent," Reichert said. "The national environment played a significantly higher role, and had more of an impact, than I expected it to play."

At least 20,000 ballots remain uncounted, but Reichert has steadily padded his lead since Election Day and held a 4,727-vote margin Monday. The Associated Press, based on voting trends, declared victory for Reichert late Monday.

Burner called Reichert on Monday night to congratulate him and will hold a news conference today in Bellevue, her campaign said.

Burner ran an incredible campaign for a first-timer. If she comes back for the rematch, she'll be that much wiser, more battle-tested, with a more mature network of donors, grassroots activists, and netroots supporters.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, Democratic challenger Mary Jo Kilroy battles on:

Just days after the balloting that left her 3,600 votes away from a seat in Congress, Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy has reactivated her campaign to sniff out a few thousand voters who could hold the key to the election.

Kilroy's campaign called about 70,000 voters last weekend and aired television and radio ads asking people who cast provisional ballots to contact the campaign and county boards of elections to make sure their votes in the 15 th Congressional District are counted.

Kilroy came up 3,536 votes short of toppling Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce of Upper Arlington, but she did not concede the election last week. Kilroy and her supporters think she could win after provisional and absentee votes are counted next week.

Attorneys for groups that had opposed new voter-ID requirements were negotiating with state officials last night on how provisional ballots would be counted. The two sides were to resume talks today in the chambers of U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley.

If the voter was wrongly required to cast a provisional ballot -- for instance, he or she had an old address on an otherwise valid driver's license -- the opponents want that vote counted as a regular ballot. That way, the voters would not have to produce additional documentation to make their votes count.

An attorney for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said the two sides had agreed on about "94 percent" of the points.

Slightly more than 10,000 people in the 15 th Congressional District cast provisional ballots, which are required when voters cannot produce identification establishing their residency.

Kilroy's campaign thinks that it will capture the majority of those votes because transient voters tend to favor Democrats -- hence the fresh blast of campaign ads nearly a week after the election.

And in CT-02, the two candidates must have ulcers by now.

The roller coaster recount in the 2nd Congressional District took a sharp turn Monday afternoon when officials in one small eastern Connecticut town discovered an error that had given Democrat Joe Courtney 100 extra votes.

By nightfall, though, Courtney had gained back 40 of those votes due to the discovery of another error in another small town that had inflated the vote totals of his opponent, Republican incumbent Rob Simmons.

Later the same evening, a computation error in yet a third town gave Republicans an additional 31 votes, according to the state party chairman.

The stomach-churning ride is expected to screech to a halt late tonight, when every community in the sprawling, 65-town district will have completed its mandated recount. By law, the municipalities have until midnight Wednesday to report their revised tallies to the secretary of the state's office, but 56 had completed the process by Monday night and the final nine will do so today.

Courtney's lead is currently a razor-thin 82 votes.

Prior to the recount in CT-02, Democrat Joe Courtney led by fewer than 200 votes over incumbent Republican Rob Simmons.  Over the past few days, towns have been rechecking their vote totals - usually by just opening up the machine and making sure the number reads the same as the one reported.  Recounts must be completed by Wednesday night.

I just heard on the radio that Joe Courtney, Connecticut Congressional District 2, lead narrowed by 100 votes from a math error in the town of Lebanon.

Democrat Joe Courtney's lead in the 2nd Congressional District dropped to 66 votes Monday after officials in Lebanon discovered a math error that had given him 100 extra votes over Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, an election official said.

"It was human error," said Lebanon election moderator John Bendoraitis. "It was strictly misreading one number on one machine."