I was pleased by the first thing, and so thrilled by the second that when I saw @ChrisMurphyCT’s announcement tweet [image below], I re-tweeted it to my loyal followers in the Twitterverse and then tweeted about it myself.
To my surprise and delight, I received a video response to that tweet from our future junior Senator:
Thank you Chris Murphy, for the kind words. And thanks also to anyone reading this who still has a bookmark to spazeboy.net or subscribes to the RSS feed. I haven’t forgotten about this blog, I’ve just been focusing most of my free time on graduate school lately. As the saying goes though, since Chris Murphy’s entry in the U.S. Senate race has re-energized my will to blog, “I’ll be back.”
Last night I went to New Haven for an informational meeting about the Hilltop Brigade. The basic idea is that they round up and coordinate volunteers from the two Connecticut congressional districts that can be considered “safe” (the 1st and 3rd), and dispatch those volunteers to the 2nd, 4th, and 5th to help elect (and this year to re-elect!) Democrats to the House.
The meeting last night was packed. I went there with no intention of filming anything, so I tried something I’d never done before: I filmed a speech with my cellphone. I normally use my Mini-DV Camcorder, but I correctly suspected since the event was at a house that there would be no room for my tripod. Below is a video of Chris Murphy singing the praises of the Hilltop Brigade:
Turn up your volume a bit. The audio quality is bad, and barely passable. I will be taking my own advice from now on.
So if you’re interested in helping with the Hilltop Brigade, please head on over to their site and sign up. It looks like the site has not been updated since the last cycle, because all references to the 4th CD mention Diane Farrell rather than Jim Himes, so be sure to also sign up directly with the Himes campaign as well.
By the way, Jim Himes made quite a splash there last night. I suspect that a lot of people in that packed house were eager to take down Chris Shays and pleased by what was probably their first encounter with Jim Himes.
On September 16, 2006, College Democrats from all over Connecticut gathered at the University of Hartford for workshops and to meet with the Democrats running for office last November. Jon Kantrowitz, CTBlogger and I even gave a talk about blogging, leaving me to wonder if we inspired any College Democrats to get involved with a little bit of online activism.
I filmed all of the speakers that day, but for some reason the only videos I posted were those of Chris Murphy and Joe Courtney. Here is Chris Murphy’s speech: Chris Murphy Addresses College Dems
If you want to see Joe Courtney’s remarks from 9/16/2006, just click here.
Chris Murphy joined Colin McEnroe Friday to talk about Iraq, Murphy’s Iraq forum in New Britain the night prior, and the Presidential address from the same night.
The 30-second radio spot, which airs on Danbury and Waterbury stations, characterizes Murphy as a hypocrite. Quoting the congressman on the need to get lobbyist money and special-interest money out of elections, an announcer says when Murphy got to Washington he “changed his tune …, taking over $190,000 from special-interest committees and lobbyists” and that Murphy’s “total haul from special-interest and lobbyist money is over $450,000.” The radio ad does not cite a source for these figures. The announcer directs listeners to a Web site, realdemocratstory.com, that spotlights 28 freshman Democrats and provides links to each one.
And if you want a citation of those figures, you’re not likely to find one at “realdemocratstory.com,” which redirects to the DCCC website. The real URL, well, I think I’ve given you all the information you need to find it, if you must.
The NRCC is probably targeting Chris Murphy because of things like this other Scott Whipple report in the New Britain Herald from August 1, “Murphy calls for ethics reform”
Currently, members of Congress can bring ethics complaints to the Ethics Committee, composed of sitting members who decide if the complaint warrants an investigation. If an investigation is considered necessary, the committee does the digging and determines whether punishment is needed.
Murphy insists freshman Democrats want to address structural flaws in the process.
Earlier this year, the House leadership appointed a bipartisan Special Task Force on Ethics Enforcement to determine how to handle ethics claims. Murphy and his newly elected colleagues say they are concerned because this task force has not released its recommendations on whether to appoint an outside investigator for claims against members of Congress.
This report was targeted for release in late May. If Congress fails to return in September with an ethics reform proposal for consideration, Murphy said he intends to begin working with other newly elected Democrats on legislation to address the problem.
“Reform isn’t easy,” Murphy said. “Nothing worthwhile ever is.”
Case in point: It wasn’t easy to unseat Nancy Johnson, but boy was it worthwhile.
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