A Congressional Fifth District Democratic primary debate in early August was marked by a testy retort from Chris Donovan, the onetime presumptive leader and speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives, to a policy question mildly framed by opponent Dan Roberti.
In the end, it was all Elizabeth Esty.
A onetime state representative and attorney from Cheshire, Esty was able to overcome Donovan after the arrest of his finance manager on federal charges he solicited donations in exchange for a promise to influence legislation in the Connecticut General Assembly. Donovan says he was not involved in any wrongdoing and has not been charged.
Roberti won an 11th hour endorsement from former Pres. Bill Clinton, but it was not enough to win over voters and overcome Esty even as he suspended his active campaign in the closing days to be with his mother, who died of cancer the Saturday before the primaries.
Esty will face state Sen. Andrew Roraback, who survived a four-way race against Mark Greenberg, Lisa Wilson Foley and Justin Bernier in the Republican primary. Esty and Roraback will vie for the Fifth District seat of U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy.
Now the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Sen. seat of Joe Lieberman, Murphy easily brushed back Susan Bysiewicz, who has made two unsuccessful bids for public office since stepping down in 2008 as Connecticut secretary of state. A relative unknown outside Connecticut, Murphy immediately found himself in national headlines due to the heavyweight name of Linda McMahon, the former CEO of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. After being trounced two years ago by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, McMahon had no problem shunting aside former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, while running on a recycled campaign platform promising to use her business acumen in the Beltway to bolster economic growth.
“I have a plan to turn this economy around and ”¦ it starts with a middle-class tax cut (to) insert about $500 into the pockets of every average family of four in Connecticut,” McMahon said during a debate with Shays in mid-July. “It will cut taxes on businesses (from 35 percent) to 25 percent. It will cut regulations on our businesses. It”™ll cut runaway spending by 1 percent every year. It”™ll train our workforce to make sure that we have skilled workers for jobs that are available, and it would develop a comprehensive energy plan for energy independence while we protect our environment.”
For his part, Murphy said he is focusing his campaign on bolstering U.S. manufacturing, while pledging to make an “historic investment” in transportation infrastructure and better support small businesses.
“I don”™t think we can survive as a nation and as a state if we don”™t make things here, so that”™s why I”™ve led the effort in Washington to create a movement toward buying things (made) in this country again,” Murphy said in a Bridgeport primary debate with Bysiewicz. “There are 600,000 jobs that could be created in the short term if just we did a better job of using federal dollars to procure things from U.S. companies.”
“Big businesses have done very well in this country when it comes to federal tax policy, when it comes to subsidy programs; and small businesses are struggling,” Murphy added at a later point in the debate. “My entire focus as a U.S. senator is going to be on making sure that when we give tax cuts, we give tax cuts to small businesses; that when we”™re talking regulatory reform, it”™s going to be targeted at small startup businesses.”
McMahon”™s campaign is likely to compare that stance to Murphy”™s voting record in Congress, where he has sided squarely with the Obama administration, which has vigorously defended its small-business policies.
“Chris Murphy has raised taxes consistently and voted to increase spending by raising the debt ceiling eight times since he”™s been in Congress,” McMahon said. “We have an opportunity, I believe, to make sure we aren”™t continuing to send the same career politicians back to Washington that created the mess that we”™re in, and expect them to fix it ”¦. We need job creators, not career politicians. We need someone who”™s walked in the shoes of our businesspeople here in our state.”
And then there is “Beltway Jim,” the newest sobriquet by a Republican for U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, who looks to win a third term in Congress since unseating Shays in 2008. In an interview earlier this year, Himes chuckled in recalling the stump line repeated by his 2010 opponent Dan Debicella, whose signature statement was plugging varying unwelcome actions by Congress into the phrase, “If you like XXX, then Jim is your man.”
The man Republicans have picked to unseat Himes is Steve Obsitnik, who touts his own business credentials as CEO of Quintel Corp. With no record on public policy to highlight, however, Obsitnik will run more than anything against the economic and health-reform policies of President Obama, Congress and by extension Himes.
“We”™ve been delivered chronic unemployment, anemic economic growth, (and) a staggering amount of federal debt,” Obsitnik said at a Stamford press conference in late July. “As an entrepreneur and a businessman, I”™ve seen what people can accomplish. I”™ve felt it; I”™ve benefited from it. Washington really has to stop this anti-entrepreneur approach ”¦ A few people in Washington don”™t know better than the millions of entrepreneurs out there.
“We must address the ”˜fiscal cliff,”™” Obsitnik added. “Are you satisfied with Jim Himes and Washington”™s approach to the problem ”“ big government spending, big government regulation?”
Speaking at the University of Connecticut-Stamford in July, Himes addressed the same looming cliff of higher taxes that economists agree would deliver a punishing blow to the recovery.
“There is much more we should be doing on jobs,” Himes said. “In the month of December, we have, I think, the first opportunity since I have been in Congress for a little over three years to do a very big compromise around the budget, around the fiscal path that we”™re on, around the deficit, around the investments that we need to make in our highways and our schools and that sort of thing ”“ what is known as the grand bargain ”¦.What begins to happen in December is poisonous to all 535 members of the House and Senate ”“ everybody there hates some aspect of what is about to happen in December, ”¦ the expiration of the ”™01 and ”™03 tax cuts.”
In the race shaping up in the Fifth District, Esty and Roraback will pit their respective records in the Connecticut General Assembly against each other.
Esty was given scant opportunity to address economic issues in a Democratic primary debate sponsored in early August by the League of Women Voters. During her tenure in the Connecticut General Assembly, she supported an expansion of Connecticut”™s enterprise zone program among the few business bills she signed onto as a co-sponsor.
Her spouse Dan Esty has championed balancing business growth with energy and environmental intitiatives during his own short stretch as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Speaking generally, Esty said she would address tax laws that provide incentives to move jobs overseas; would enforce trade laws; and would reinvigorate education. At other stops on the campaign trail, she has stumped for promoting clean energy companies, investing in infrastructure and freeing up more capital for small businesses while cutting their regulatory burdens.
In Roraback, she is up against a Republican state senator and fourth-generation business owner from Torrington who has been a supporter of job creation, but who has been overshadowed in his own party by the vocal leadership of Sen. John McKinney, president of the Connecticut senate, and Rep. Larry Cafero of Norwalk.
In a July Republican debate in Brookfield, Roraback said he understands the pressures of meeting payrolls and dealing with regulations.
“Wham-O has just decided to bring the production of Frisbees back from China to the United States,” Roraback said. “General Electric is bringing the manufacture of appliances back from Mexico and China to this country. If this country gets its act together, lowers the corporate tax rate, repeals Obamacare, makes energy more affordable, and begins to deconstruct our regulatory environment, which is strangling small business, I have every confidence that those buildings in Torrington will be humming with Yankee ingenuity once again.”
During the primary debates this summer, perhaps no candidate summed up voter sentiment more eloquently than Roraback”™s Republican opponent Justin Bernier, who served in Afghanistan and who spoke at the same debate.
“I can tell you everyone there has a watch, because seconds, minutes, certainly hours can be the difference between life and death; between a mission ”¦ being successful and one being a failure,” Bernier said. “When you come back to Hartford, when you come back to Washington ”¦ no one”™s checking their watches. There isn”™t the same sense of urgency, but I can tell you today that the voters have the sense of urgency. They have a sense of urgency about spending, about ”¦ job creation, about energy, about health care, about all the big issues that are facing this country today.”
