Democrats caught one of their few lucky breaks of the young
midterm election cycle when Sen. Chris Dodd — officially “D-CT”
but often affectionately designated as “D-Countrywide” — announced
his retirement in January. Dodd’s favorability ratings were
atrocious, especially for an entrenched incumbent. He was mired in
scandal. Polling match-ups with the Republican candidates usually
showed him losing to all comers.
So when Dodd decided not to run for reelection this year, he
instantly flipped his Senate seat from a likely Republican takeover
to a near-certain Democratic retention. Ever since Joe Lieberman
sent Lowell Weicker packing in 1988, Connecticut voters have liked
their senators to have the letter “D” appearing next to their
names. Even in what could shape up to be a good Republican year, it
generally takes a pol as unpopular as Dodd to alter that basic
fact.
Unfortunately, Dodd’s replacement as the Democratic
standard-bearer, state attorney general Richard Blumenthal, is no
walk along the Connecticut River either. Blumenthal is an
overzealous Eliot Spitzer imitator with a duller social life but a
no less acute sense of his office’s activist potential. The
Hartford Courant once editorialized that Blumenthal “has
elevated activism to an art form, figuratively beating the
ambulance to the accident almost every time.” The Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI) labeled him the nation’s worst state
attorney general.
None of this has stopped Blumenthal from turning around the
Connecticut Senate race. As soon as he announced his candidacy, a
Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey showed him trouncing his
potential Republican challengers by better than 30 points.
Blumenthal led former congressman Rob Simmons 59 percent to 28
percent, ex-wrestling executive Linda McMahon 60 percent to 28
percent, and financial guru Peter Schiff by 63 percent to 23
percent. The same poll showed Dodd losing to Simmons by four
points, tied with McMahon at 43 percent apiece, and leading Schiff
by just seven points. Other polls — PPP is a Democratic firm —
found Dodd in even worse shape.
One might assume that the voters would be repulsed at the sight
of a Greenwich limousine liberal chasing ambulances, but the key to
successful crusading — Blumenthal has been in office for five
four-year terms — is to convince people you are really looking out
for the little guy. Blumenthal picks unpopular targets and says he
is wielding his considerable power on behalf of the downtrodden. He
entered the race with a 40-point net favorable rating and led his
nearest Republican rival by a two to one margin in the most recent
Quinnipiac poll. His job approval rating hovered near 80
percent.
Blumenthal built his popularity on the backs of such easy prey
as tobacco companies. In the 1990s, he negotiated the Master
Settlement Agreement by which state attorneys general agreed to
drop their litigation against cigarette manufacturers if the coffin
nail-makers were willing to pony up. Nobody likes Big Tobacco and
everybody loves the anti-smoking efforts the national tobacco deal
was supposed to fund. But the end result was a transfer of $14
billion from disproportionately low-income smokers to the bank
accounts of wealthy trial lawyers.
CEI senior attorney Hans Bader pointed out in the Washington
Examiner that “in many years, Connecticut spends nothing at
all on preventing smoking, while much of the money has gone into
lawyers’ pockets.” Among those who benefited from the deal were
Blumenthal’s own former law firm, one of his old law school
buddy’s, and the law firm that represented former governor John
Rowland.
Blumenthal has an almost uncanny knack for expanding the powers
of his office in creative ways that will endear him to the public.
One of his early crusades was getting rid of ATM fees at
Connecticut banks. He went after Midwestern power plants he
maintained were dirtying the Nutmeg State’s air. Blumenthal brought
his power to bear against Microsoft and HMOs. HMOs and polluters
are about as popular as Big Tobacco.
In 2002, the Connecticut Supreme Court concluded in a unanimous
decision that Blumenthal had overstepped his legal authority when
he went after the administrator of an academy for mis-use of funds.
The court held that it was actually Connecticut’s education
commissioner who should have brought the case forward and that one
of the statutory purposes of the office Blumenthal held was to
avoid the problem of state agencies suing one another. Blumenthal
claimed he had broader powers.
“In just 12 years, under state Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal’s desire to increase his authority,” American Enterprise
Institute resident scholar John Lott wrote in a local newspaper at
the time, “his office has ballooned in size, more than doubling its
budget from $13 million to almost $27 million and increasing the
number of cases completed by 65 percent.”
“Blumenthal is so ubiquitous, in fact, reporters joke there must
be a cardboard cutout of the attorney general that simply gets
moved around from event to event,” reported Elizabeth Hamilton in
the Courant. “Whether it’s a funeral for a former state
official, a press conference, or an election-night victory party,
you can count on seeing Blumenthal’s face in the shot if there’s a
camera present.”
Or as David Plotz put it in a generally favorable profile for
Slate, Blumenthal “turned consumer advocacy into high art
and helped lead the nationwide trend of AG activism. According to
Yale legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar, Reagan-era deregulation and
congressional gridlock left a power vacuum….AGs, always trolling
for power and press, rushed to fill it. Blumenthal proved a
master.” Lott charged, “Blumenthal has gone so far into actions
previously reserved for other parts of the government that he often
neglects the real duties of his job.”
As in Spitzer’s case, however, it hasn’t been all fun and games
for those targeted during Blumenthal’s crusades. “I just think he’s
evil. He acts always for himself, with complete disregard for the
public,” a lawyer who represented industries sued by Blumenthal
told the Hartford Courant. “Like everybody else in the
business world, I’m scared to death of this guy. He can wreck
careers.”
WHY IS SOMEONE AS ADEPT at self-promotion as Blumenthal still
attorney general after nearly 20 years? State Democrats complain
that he has looked out for his own self-preservation first rather
than the needs of their party. He has repeatedly taken a pass on
races for Senate and governor. “He’s intelligent. He’s a decent
guy. He just doesn’t have the fire for a tough run,” New Haven
Advocate political columnist Paul Bass memorably observed.
“He wants it to be handed to him, and it never was.”
That may be about to change. Dodd’s retirement sets Blumenthal
up for a fairly easy Senate race. Rob Simmons, a quintessential New
England moderate, was a safe Republican to run against a
scandal-tainted incumbent. He almost certainly lacks the star power
to go up against Blumenthal for an open seat. Alas, Peter Schiff,
the prescient apostle of financial doom, appears unlikely to make
it out of the primary.
The Republicans’ best chance may be with Linda McMahon, who has
recently taken a narrow lead among GOP primary voters. McMahon, the
only Senate candidate currently on the air with television ads, at
least has the money to self-finance and expose Blumenthal’s record.
But Republican operatives worry that her career with World
Wrestling Entertainment will provide fodder for opposition
researchers. It will be difficult to run against a limousine
liberal while she sails around on a 47-foot yacht named Sexy
Bitch.
This leaves Blumenthal, however undeservedly and however
indistinguishable from Sen. Dodd, the heavy favorite to win in
November (he faces only token opposition in the Democratic
primary). Barring an astonishing upset in a year of 1994-like
proportions for Republicans, the country may get to see Blumenthal
take his crusading to Capitol Hill. But Blumenthal’s rivals would
have this consolation — at least a trip to Washington would
finally get him out of the attorney general’s office.
