When the National Republican Congressional Committee decided to commission a survey kind of a census thing, encompassing every Congressional district in the country, who do you think they picked to represent Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District?
Unlike Barack Obama, I’ll remember the little people, as I fill out the survey, communicating to Congressional Republicans the hopes and dreams of Hartford’s actuaries and starving artists. I am, as the NRCC wrote, “one of a select few” chosen to give the GOP a “greater understanding of the views of Republicans.”
Oh, to be sure, there are those among you who think these survey things are pathetic efforts to raise money; that, in fact, all the GOP wants to know from Cohen is whether his checks will bounce.
Well, that’s as cynical as Hillary Clinton tossing down shots-and-beer with the boys, while she regales them with stories of her first moose hunt. Sure, the GOP asked me for money, to “bring our Republican candidates victory on Election Day.”
Beating Larson
I’ve been told that the Republicans have a good chance to beat U.S. Rep. John Larson in the First District, because he is overconfident, just because he won the last two elections with 97.8 percent of the vote. How can I not write the Republicans a check?
The survey, for the most part, is masterfully neutral and objective. The boys want to know how old I am, whether I voted in the last two elections, and whether I’m a conservative, moderate or liberal Republican.
Some of the questions are quite thoughtful. For instance: “Do you think being strong on the issue of illegal immigration and trying to bring it under control helps or hurts the Republican Party in the long term when it comes to winning elections in your area?” Darn good question. We ain’t on the Rio Grande. Outside of a few cranky Connecticut mayors wanting to purge some suspicious Hispanics, the topic doesn’t come up much.
There are some “support” or “oppose” options on what are lovingly called “social issues,” known in Connecticut and most of the Northeast as “icky-poo” issues that are never, never talked about out loud. The GOP survey team wants to know whether we support or oppose banning “all abortions,” which offers their poor regional candidates no weasel-style option about rape or incest or saving the life of the mother or saving the life of the local Republican campaign.
If the survey betrays its GOP roots, it is perhaps in the section asking about foreign policy, which is portrayed in a saber-rattling, kill-the-bad-guys, Democrats-are-sissies way that best fits the instincts of such well-known Republicans as President Bush, Sen. McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is not actually a Republican, except sometimes, kind of. Maybe.
Which party has the stronger message about the War on Terror? The “Republican policy of stabilizing Iraq or the sissy “Democrat policy of ‘cut and run.’
The survey letter does make reference to the nightmarish potential for Democrats to keep control of Congress and win the White House, at which point, we would all have Swedish health insurance and free-flowing welfare transfer payments and a personal income tax rate of 85 percent. Although the survey work is sponsored by a Congressional Republican campaign committee, the signal to avoid an all-Democrat Washington may actually be of more help to John McCain.
It is easier to imagine McCain winning the Presidency and engaging in a veto orgy of Democratic legislation than it is to imagine the GOP sweeping Congress.
Connecticut voters know how that game is played. Vote for a Republican governor, to keep the Democratic legislative children under control.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
