According to the always excellent Capitol Watch, State Rep. Kevin Witkos, of Canton, announced that he will seek the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Thomas Herlihy in November.  Herlihy is leaving the seat after five terms as Senator.

The 8th Senate District is made up of 11 towns - Avon, Simsbury, Canton, New Hartford, Barkhamsted, Hartland, Colebrook, Norfolk, the western portion of Granby, the south side of Torrington, and a sliver of Harwinton.

The Republican National Committee has made it possible for you to send your love to loved ones this Valentine’s Day via their website.  You can choose from one of six cards - three featuring Senator Clinton and three featuring Barack Obama.  According to MSBNC, there have been more than 400,000 such e-cards already sent - and the RNC is expecting many, many more to be sent today. 

Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro apparently played host to a gaggle of Barack Obama supporters last night, plotting a strategy for wooing superdelegates to their cause.

Sometime tonight, after the House and Senate finish voting, members of Congress who are backing Barack Obama’s presidential bid will huddle in the Capitol Hill living room of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) to map strategy to capture more superdelegates for the Illinois senator.Obama’s top congressional superdelegate wranglers will aim to be there: On the House side, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is handling the Senate portfolio. Mike Robertson, Obama’s delegate and congressional relations coordinator, is also expected to be on hand.

The Democratic National Committee rules on “superdelegates” are really quite unique - and very different from the RNC rules.  On the Republican side, there will be 173 “unbound” delegates to the Republican National Convention - the State Party Chair and the two National Committee Members from each State and territory.  It takes 1,191 delegates to win the Republican nomination, meaning that unbound delegates could account for approximately 14% of the win total.  By comparison, according to Real Clear Politics there are 796 superdelegates on the Democratic side.  With the magic delegate number being 2,025, superdelegates could make up as much as 39% of the win total.

Each Party is certainly allowed to make their own rules and - rightly so - give preferential treatment to those Party activists who work hard, contribute money, and are committed to the advancement of the Party in even the worst of times.  But the unelected, uncommitted superdelegates in the Democratic process certainly seem to have a huge amount of influence - so much so that some of the biggest name Democrats played a live ammunition game of Risk on Rosa DeLauro’s kitchen table in the middle of the night yesterday.

The major news of the day was the incredibly tense Congressional hearing today before the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by the very short Rep. Waxman of California and the quite tall Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia.  All-star pitcher Roger Clemens faced his accuser and former trainer, Brian McNamee.  The damning Mitchell Report cited an interview from McNamee which claimed that Roger Clemens used human growth hormone (HGH) during the course of his career.  Mr. Clemens has vehemently denied any such allegation and claims that McNamee is lying. 

 During the hearing today, it was revealed that the southpaw Andy Pettitte admitted to using HGH on more than one occasion and having conversations with “the Rocket” about Clemens’ use of the banned hormone.  Calling Pettitte “a friend”, Clemens said he was “shocked” to learn of the Pettitte confession.  The other shocking news was that Mr. McNamee claimed to have turned over syringes and other paraphernalia that McNamee said he used to administer HGH to the man who won 7 Cy Young Awards. 

Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays was particularly tough  on Brian McNamee, the trainer who allegedly injected Human Growth Hormone into the body of All-Star pitcher Roger Clemens.

Rep. Christopher Shays calls McNamee a police officer who became a drug dealer. “Mr. McNamee, you are a drug dealer.” (McNamee used to work as a cop in New York.)”That’s your opinion,” McNamee says.

“You were dealing in them, yes?” Shays asks.

“Yes,” McNamee says.

“and they were illegal.” Shays continues.

“Yes.”

The hearing swung between riveting and sideshow as the two men - Clemens and McNamee - lobbed rhetorical hand grenades at each other throughout the course of the day.  Neither seemed to score a coup de grace in the confrontation, though almost certainly one of the two committed perjury throughout the day.  We’ll have to wait and see what the tests reveal to determine if Clemens was “juiced”.

As the rain/sleet/snow continues to come down today, speculation is growing on the Internet about whom the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, will pick as his running mate for the fall campaign.  Blogger Rob Bluey has generated a list of 24 potential picks with some brief analysis. One of Connecticut’s leaders made it on the list:

Joe Lieberman: Picking McCain’s friend Joe Lieberman, an independent with strong foreign policy credentials, but who is weak everywhere else from a conservative point of view, would do even more damage to McCain with conservatives while burnishing his appeal to independents. Given how much trouble McCain is having with winning over conservatives, selecting Lieberman would be a particularly bad move, but you know, we are talking about “Maverick” John McCain here.

In the grand scheme of things that would absolutely inflame the Ned Lamont wing of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, putting Joe on the Republican ticket for Vice President would have to be near the top of the list, I would think.

With the counts still pouring in, its shaping up to be a big night for Arizona Senator John McCain and Illinois Senator Barack Obama.  On the Republican side, John McCain appears to have held off a strong charge from Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in Virginia.  The Democrats have overwhelmingly handed Senator Clinton another stinging blow - and all of the sudden, Barack Obama has won eight primaries in a row.

In his victory speech from Wisconsin, Obama started to prep the rhetorical battlefield against John McCain, paying due homage to the “American war hero” before laying out the differences between the two men - “100 years in Iraq” versus immediate surrender, continued tax relief or massive tax hikes, and more personal freedom or more centralized federal government. 

Obama is already looking toward the autumn campaign, though Hillary Clinton is certain to have more to say about that.