Twenty-two years ago, as the hype around the upcoming election season grew, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Connecticut’s fourth district couldn’t escape the aura of the President.
The candidate, a little-known Fairfield politics professor named John Orman, was up against a popular incumbent – U.S. Rep Stuart McKinney – and stood little chance of being elected.
But the dagger in Orman’s heart may well have come when President Ronald Reagan, well on his way to a landslide re-election victory over former Vice President Walter Mondale, landed his helicopter in the middle of the Fairfield soccer field, and proceeded to rally up support for McKinney and other Republicans at a rally in downtown Fairfield.
Fast forward two decades, replace Reagan with George W. Bush, and insert U.S. Rep Christopher Shays, R-4 and Diane Farrell as the congressional candidates, and the situation couldn’t possibly be more different.
Shays, who was first elected to the House in a special election after McKinney died of AIDS in 1987, can’t run far enough from Bush, whose approval rating in Connecticut has been below 30 percent for most of the past two years.
Search the Congressman’s campaign literature or listen to his radio advertisements, and you won’t see or hear the word “Republican” – the one word that could cost him re-election to an 11th term.
Bush has made two trips to Connecticut over the past six months, neither of which helped Shays’ re-election bid.
Last spring, when the President stopped in Bridgeport to give a speech, Farrell held a press conference denouncing Bush and Shays.
And last month, when Bush spent an afternoon in Greenwich raising money for Republican candidates, Shays opted to spend the day campaigning in other parts of the state.
Farrell, meanwhile, is running TV ads featuring a woman telling the audience that Shays is “representing George W. Bush instead of his constituents.”
Such is the case in districts across the country, where Democrats are seeking to take advantage of the President’s record lack of popularity, and Republicans like Shays are running on platforms of independence and moderation.
“In ’84,” Orman says, “Reagan was in a secret war in Nicaragua. “Now, Bush is in a not-so-secret war in Iraq, and that’s going to be a key issue on election day.”
In New Jersey, Senator Bob Menendez, in an official television ad, starts with a picture of his opponent Tom Kean Jr., and then actually morphs Kean’s face into Bush’s’ face. The ad states “If it looks like George Bush, acts like George Bush, it is George Bush.”
Ryan Wolfe, deputy director of “Victory 2006”, an organization devoted to Republican campaigns in Connecticut , says the GOP has to stick up for its core values.
“National security, economic growth and international relations are all issues that hinge on the balance of power in Washington,” he says. “Republicans stand for lower taxes, a strong national defense and maintaining a priority of securing the homeland.”
But Republicans who have focused on those issues have done so without mentioning the President’s name.
Shays speaks regularly about national security, but the accomplisments he touts – such as creating the 9/11 Commission – are often pieces of legislation that were passed despite objections from the White House.
“It’s really tortured his mind,” Orman says. “He’s a strong supporter of the President. He’s one of the strong supporters of the war on terror, but he knows the fourth district is one of the most anti-war distrcits in Connecticut.”
“He’s a New England Republican, so he wants people to know he’s not an evangelical from Oklahoma.”
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