Recent Quinnipiac graduate Michael Vitali stepped up to the plate Wednesday night, accepting the Republican nomination for State Representative in the 85th Legislative District. The caucus was held at Brothers Restaurant in Wallingford with a healthy turnout of about 45 supporters that filled the private room reserved for the event.

The current officeholder, Mary Mushinsky, has not been challenged since 2000 when current Dept. of Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell took her on. Vitali has virtually been a lifelong resident of Wallingford excluding his time at Quinnipiac University in nearby Hamden and a brief stint after college.

Vitali said in his nominating speech:

Unfortunately, our sense of community and common purpose has not transferred to our representation in Hartford. The State of Connecticut is facing nearly the same issues that we have faced as a town. Regrettably, our representatives in state government have done nothing but squabble and waste time, while simultaneously promoting their own issues above the issues that affect us all.

Vitali feels Ms. Mushinsky is out of touch with her community and her emphasis on allocating precious tax dollars for projects like “fishways” clearly show that he is on to something.

As is being widely reported this morning, a trio of potential Vice Presidents are headed to Sedona, Arizona, this weekend, for a backyard BBQ with presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain.  Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be settling down for beers (or water) and ribs with the GOP’s November warhorse.  The national media speculation is that betwixt smores and camp fire songs, the barbecue will actually be an informal Vice Presidential job interview.  With the Republican contest having been resolved for weeks now, the next necessary bit of process has been the VP search, and the Memorial Day Weekend cookout only stokes the flames.

Each of the three would bring different strengths (and weaknesses) to the GOP ticket.  Bay Stater Romney (Did you know he’s Mormon?) ran an aggressive campaign for the Republican nomination before quickly departing the race soon after Super Tuesday.  His well known strengths - business matters, economic issues, fundraising - seem to position the native Michigander (while Michigan and its 17 electoral votes currently poll dead even between McCain and Obama) -  as perhaps the strongest Vice Presidential candidate for the GOP.  The downside?  McCain really seemed to hate Romney during the primaries.

Much ink has been spilled to describe Louisiana’s new Governor, Bobby Jindal, as the ”rising star” of the Republican Party - and rightly so.  He’s a whiz kid, a Rhodes Scholar, a tireless worker who is trying to clean up Louisiana’s notorious corruption and, as is often described, a health care expert - all these adjectives collected at just 36 years old.  An Indian-American, Jindal would also bring some diversity to the ticket, and appeal to the tight-knit Indian-American community across the nation.  The major drawbacks highlighted for Jindal are his youth and that he’s been Governor for like ten minutes.

The tenor parts in this barbershop quartet will be sung by Florida Governor Charlie Crist.  He’s immensely popular in Florida (If for some reason you miss the significance of this, simply tune into HBO on Sunday at 9pm), he’s got a perpetual tan, and his surprising endorsement is widely cited as the key factor to McCain’s Sunshine State knockout blow to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.  His presence on the ticket could free up McCain to spend crucial time in other battleground states (read: Ohio and Pennsylvania) instead of Florida.

It was also reported that popular Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was invited to attend the pow-wow, but his schedule prevented him from doing so.  Like our own Congressman Christopher Shays, Gov. Pawlenty endorsed McCain early and stuck with him, even through the very darkest days of the effort.  Look for Pawlenty to be a high profile presence across the nation for Sen. McCain.

With Awe Kooda bilaxpak Kuuxshish seeming to have the Democratic nomination in hand, McCain’s VP pick could be more important than ever as a divided electorate considers the future of the nation.

In 2006, Republican Tim Ackert, a general contractor from Coventry, ran hard in an uphill battle to represent the 8th State House District in the General Assembly.  He was a tireless figure in Columbia, Coventry, & South Vernon - knocking on thousands of doors, getting his name out, and buzzing from event to event.  But the incumbent (State Rep. Joan Lewis) was very well known in the area and the Democrats have a significant voter registration advantage, so it was a disappointing but not unexpected surprise to see that Ackert had lost his bid on Election Night 2006.

Last year, rumors started circulating that district Democrats were so impressed by Mr. Ackert’s bid that they wanted him to switch parties and run on their line in 2008.  Dismissing these, Tim returned to his business and active involvement in the community.  He continued to note, however, the lack of leadership provided by State Rep. Lewis on a number of local issues and began to consider another bid.

That consideration bore fruit last night at the Republican nominating convention as Tim Ackert was again nominated to challenge State Rep. Joan Lewis in the 8th State House District.  Quoted in the Courant, Ackert said this:

“We need change, but change for the better, not just change for the sake of change,” Ackert said. “We need a legislator who will work for us.”

Look for Ackert, with the additional funds provided by the Citizens Election Program, to wage another aggressive campaign to represent the 8th State House District.

It is rare in this space for us to offer praise for Connecticut’s two Democrat U.S. Senators - Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd.  They are Democrats who very often espouse views that are contrary to ours and we often criticize them for it.  But today we break new ground with praise for both gentlemen.

Senator Joe Lieberman, a tireless advocate for his causes and a statesman in the true sense of the word, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today bemoaning the path that Democrats have taken in recent years in relation to foreign policy.  The entire piece is well worth a read as an analysis of recent American history and the policies that emerge from the synthesis of different world views.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

The slow evolution of the Democratic Party’s world view, from staunchly patriotic, anti-Communist, and intolerant of moral evil into the “blame America first”, relativist, and “American the Imperial Oppressor”, is perhaps one of the great transformations of 20th century political philosophy. Lieberman correctly invokes the name of Scoop Jackson as a sinking counterweight to this movement:

Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy.”

Sen. Lieberman sharply criticizes the harsh ideologues that have yanked the Democratic Party far to the left and the Purist views that excoriate those that do not fall in lockstep with them.

By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

Lieberman’s analysis of the current political landscape is certainly that of a man largely scorned by his Party - or perhaps more appropriately put, that of a man whose Party has left him. But in a week in which recent American history has been largely rewritten (the audacity to rewrite history you don’t like?), Sen. Lieberman’s proper reminder should be well received.

High honors must today go to our other U.S. Senator, Chris Dodd, for his courage in the wake of announcement about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s malignant brain tumor. After lunch with Democratic Senators yesterday, Sen. Dodd was visibly shaken:

“He’s a strong guy, has great heart,” said Dodd, who is very close friends with Kennedy. But he quickly stepped away from the microphone, leaving it to John Kerry, the other Massachusetts senator. While Kerry told people to “remember that this guy is one unbelievable fighter,” Dodd’s head was down, his eyes brimming with tears and chin shaking. (On Background, Jesse Hamilton)

Dodd spent this morning making the rounds on the network morning shows, trying to change the overall tenor of the coverage. So said Dodd on FOXNEWS:

“talked to vickie and, you know, he is getting a little upset with this funereal — laughing and joked how he was getting poked and prodded by people at 2:00 a.m.”

We join with Sen. Dodd is looking forward to Sen. Kennedy’s speedy recovery and return to the U.S. Senate.

It’s a banner day for the Governor.  Well, actually yesterday was a banner day for the Governor, if not before.

Why, you might ask?  Well, as the picture above clearly demonstrates, the Governor is sporting a new website.  It features many nice photos of children, elected officials, and Gov. Rell in all different colors - green, red, black, purple, white.

You can find all of the press releases from the Gov’s office, as well as information about the “One Thing” you can do to save energy in Connecticut, a nifty photo gallery, and as always, the Flag Status Update.

While the big media outlets are zooming from one story to the next during their 24 hours a day, nonstop coverage of the Presidential campaign, it has largely been left to others to actually report on events.  Online outfits have filled key portions of this market, with a handful of organizations exceeding all others when it comes to event coverage.  A prime example of this fact is the welcome coverage of ElectionJournal.org - whose detailed reporting on the moving events of Election Day have spread considerable light on a heretofore known but largely unseen aspect of the democratic process.

Many Republicans have already heard the stories about election day shenanigans across the nation in 2004 from campaign workers who were there - like Wisconsin, where busloads of Cheeseheads travelled from polling place to polling place, using the “voucher system” - wherein one local resident known to the polling place workers ‘vouches’ for the authenticity of a person’s residence without other proof, and being permitted to vote.  Also widely rumored were the activities of groups like ACORN, whose members allegedly falsified voter registration forms.  But no one ever saw any of this - it wasn’t on CNN, FOX, or MSNBC so it was written off by some folks as pure partisan BS and rumor-mongering. 

ElectionJournal.org and other similar groups change the dynamic.  Their coverage of the “street level” campaign as it plays out on election days across the nation has been instructive.  They are using all of the modern tools - Twitter, YouTube, Flickr - to track the election as it happens.

The EJ team is in Kentucky this week, where they have already found a voter registered on the 41st floor of a building that isn’t 41 stories tall, voters turned away from a polling place, illegal electioneering inside a polling place, and they are hot on the trail of widespread lies being spread.  Keep checking in with the EJ correspondents throughout the day.

>By Chairman Chris Healy

Dick Blumenthal has proven he can cover more ground than any public official alive. A state audit showed that Connecticut’s Speed Racer has logged more than 70,000 miles over the last 10 months. We have long wondered how Dick Blumenthal has done it, been literally everywhere and anywhere was a camera or situation beckons. He is often rightly compared to the film character “Zelig” – who morphs and appears magically throughout time to grab a spot in the photo.

There is a reason, we think. He has a very good driver and a fast car, both paid for at taxpayer expense to present himself at charity events, graduations, weddings, bean suppers, town committee nominating conventions, promotion ceremonies for local firemen and anywhere where two homo sapiens are found standing in the upright position.

Dick Blumenthal has been squired about a standard Crown Victoria, an eight-cylinder bad boy with 224-horse power, which maybe averages between 18-24 per mile on a 19-gallon tank. Now that is a carbon footprint to be proud of.

When confronted with leading all Constitutional officers’ in mileage for an office that was once considered part-time, Blumenthal backpedaled with news that he was just thinking about switching cars to a more green model. By comparison, Gov. M. Jodi Rell logged 21,000 miles during this same period, and she also had a 104-mile round trip to her Brookfield home.

But Dick is excited about his new driving options – even though he tried to blamed the car pool for his rig being bad on mileage.

“The point is that, we’ll have a hybrid,” Blumenthal said. “Of all the distinctions that I have as a constitutional officer, the first to drive a hybrid will be a noteworthy one.”

Yeah, and I was about to go out and buy a windmill.

Here are some fun facts about Speed Racer Blumenthal:

• Blumenthal travels have taken him three times the circumference of the world.
• Blumenthal has driven the width of Connecticut 1,200 times.
• Taking out his daily commute to his gated home in Greenwich, Blumenthal still logged 1,200 miles per week.
• Approximately 3,136 gallons of the good stuff were needed to keep Dick riding.
• At an average cost of $3.40 per gallon, the cost of filling up Dick’s wheels for the same period was $11,415.

Friday, Dick Blumenthal was not at a function and his absence was duly noted. A Democrat at that event told me with a smile “Dick is losing his touch.  And let me tell you, he is seen on the streets more often than our local Aldermen.”

We are all comforted that Speed Race will be reducing his carbon footprint a bit, especially in light of recent Legislative action that would probably make it illegal for him to continue as the Connecticut’s premier fellow traveler.