It’s scandal day in the world of politics. First, Sue Lowden, the front-runner in the Nevada Republican primary, looking to replace Harry Reid, seems to have broken campaign finance laws by accepting a luxury campaign bus from a donor. This could be good news for Reid because Lowden has been performing better in polling match-ups against Reid than have either Danny Tarkanian or Sharron Angle, the more conservative Republican candidates (yes, more conservative than Lowden, who thinks we should trade chickens for health care).
Then there’s Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who’s resigning because of an affair with a female staff member. Souder is, of course, a proponent of family values and abstinence-only sex education.
But the biggest political scandal today is, I think, the one coming out of Connecticut, courtesy of the New York Times. CT Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat who had been all but guaranteed to replace retiring Sen. Chris Dodd, has been playing fast-and-loose with the facts when it comes to his military service. He has often led people to believe, and has sometimes stated outright, that he served in Vietnam. It turns out he got several deferments, and when those dried up, he landed a cushy spot in the Marine Reserve and never saw action.
I understand the impulse among Democrats to downplay Blumenthal’s dishonesty, but I don’t think we should. We need to start electing politicians who deserve to be elected for reasons other than partisan identification. Blumenthal is by all indications a very smart man: magna cum laude at Harvard, editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, law clerk for Harry Blackmun, the accomplished 20-year attorney general of Connecticut. For me, his obvious intelligence makes his base dishonesty all the more surprising and troubling. To think that he could get away with something like this, and to think he needed to lie in order to get ahead, shows a great deal of narcissism and ambition. Of course all politicians are narcissistic and ambitious, but Blumenthal seems to be above the median.
In simple political terms, I doubt this means that Blumenthal is toast. In polls, he has had double-digit leads over his Republican opponents, and he might be lucky enough to land the ridiculous Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, as his opponent. (Although he’s actually been performing better in polls against the establishment candidate, former Rep. Rob Simmons.)
But just because Blumenthal will probably still win doesn’t mean that Democrats should let him. Connecticut has a stable of very strong Democratic representatives, and they would have almost three months before the August primary to establish a statewide presence. In January, Rep. Chris Murphy suggested he was considering a run against Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2012. Maybe Murphy should take a look at this year’s race. I’ll also throw in a good word for Rep. Jim Himes, who defeated longtime Republican congressman Chris Shays in 2008. (The HPR interviewed Himes last year.) A clean, competent Democrat, no matter how late to the game, should be able to win in Connecticut. We thought we had our man in Blumenthal. Luckily, we have time to correct our apparent mistake.
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