A “brigade” of liberal city and suburban door-knockers descended on New Haven as an SOS bulletin for the future of the U.S. Senate arrived home from Charlotte.
The SOS was originally sounded in Charlotte at last week’s Democratic National Convention: That Democrats in blue-state Connecticut, which currently has no Republican representatives in Washington, appear in danger of losing the state’s open U.S. Senate seat — and, perhaps in the process, control of the Senate itself.
That sense of urgency drew 250 campaign volunteers from a group called the Hilltop Brigade to the Eli Whitney Museum Sunday for a rally and strategy session for the campaign of Chris Murphy. Democrat Murphy is running against Republican Linda McMahon for the seat being vacated this year by U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman.
McMahon, a former world-wrestling exec, spent $50 million the last time she ran for the Senate (and lost). She appears on a similar spending track this time and has, to the surprise of many observers, pulled even to or even ahead of Murphy, a Congressman from the state’s Fifth District.
The sense of urgency was heightened by the fact that control of the Senate itself is up for grabs. The Connecticut race has emerged as one of a small set of contests nationwide that will determine the balance.
The state party’s big guns arrived in New Haven to fire up the Brigade.
“We are fighting for the soul of this nation. Not the soul of the Democratic Party; the soul of the nation,” New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro told those assembled. “And we will not take back the United States unless Chris Murphy is elected right now.”
“Make no mistake: Connecticut is now truly a battleground state,” declared U.S. Sen Dick Blumenthal, who defeated McMahon in 2010’s election. “We are going to have to work hard and as long as possible to elect Chris Murphy.”
The Hilltop Brigade was born in 2005 after DeLauro met with a group of Democratic activists in Stephanie Farber’s Branford living room to seek ways to alter Republican control of Washington. (Hilltop refers to “Take Back the Hill,” as in Capitol Hill.) The idea worked. Ultimately, through house parties and other events, the Hilltop Brigade, co-founded by Farber and Penny Bellamy, recruited more than 700 volunteers who knocked on doors in the key districts, usually in suburbs. Two of their three 2006 candidates won: Murphy and Joe Courtney.
Click here for their website.
Sunday the group gathered to support Murphy in his Senate quest — and determined that they’ll be needed in New Haven, not just the suburbs.
Courtesy Robert Rattner
“Here we are again at the center of a fight for the United States Senate. I have lived with the Tea Party for the last two years in the House,” Murphy told the faithful at the lunch event, singling out women’s issues, among others. “Even if President Obama gets elected, if we don’t hold onto the U.S. Senate, then they get everything they want.”
One of McMahon’s trackers was also at Eli Whitney, video camera in tow and helping himself to lunch, which included chicken gumbo soup, tea sandwiches, fruit and chocolates.
When someone spotted him and informed officials, he was told this was an invitation-only gathering. He returned his plate of food and left, but not before he managed to videotape some portions of the event.
The Hilltop volunteers usually avoid safe districts, like DeLauro’s in New Haven or U.S. Rep’s John Larson’s in East Hartford; instead they are deployed to districts in need. Farber told the group that this year they would go to three districts, but then she said New Haven had been added to the list this year because Murphy needs help. New Haven, with its largest statewide concentration of Democrats, has emerged as critical to any statewide Democratic candidate’s campaign; Murphy practically moved into town for his primary this year. (Click here and here to read about that.)
But as he noted Sunday, “there are still a lot of people who don’t know much about me. There are still a lot of people who maybe know my name but don’t know enough about me to register an opinion. There are Democratic leaning voters who want to know something about an alternative to Linda McMahon. That is where this volunteer effort comes in.”
Murphy and others said the McMahon campaign has hired teams of paid interns to go door-to door in districts throughout out the state but said paid workers are different from volunteers.
Todd Abrajana, McMahon’s spokesman, said in an interview that the McMahon campaign has a “robust” group of volunteers who go door to door and make telephone calls as well. “We have a strong army of volunteers in the state,” Abrajana said. “We have ten offices open right now.”
The campaign is about to open three more, including one in Branford.
“We expect to do about one million calls to voter,s and we are going to try to knock on half-million doors, too,” he said. “We are going to voters across the board, reaching out to Independents and Democrats we believe will consider voting for Linda.” Often discussions center on McMahon’s “jobs plan.”
Blumenthal Sunday sounded what’s becoming a familiar Murphy rallying cry: The Democrats can’t match the tens of millions McMahon will pour into the race, blanketing the airwaves; he’ll need extra people power on the streets. McMahon has blanketed airwaves and the Internet with ads for weeks now, seeking to define Murphy before Murphy can define himself to the electorate.
“I personally know the pounding he is taking every single day,” Blumenthal said, alluding to his own race two years ago against McMahon, who put $50 million of her own money to try to defeat him. “Fifty million dollars. Think of the resources he will need. We don’t need $50 million; we just need enough to fight back to win because. Believe me, this is about history.”
Blumenthal said face-to-face contact with voters, personal contact, “is irreplaceable.” Murphy, he told the standing room only audience, will fight for “women’s health care, civil rights, civil liberties” and a host of other “causes that we in this room regard as absolutely essential.”
“It is a gorgeous day in September, and you are all here to help us save the country,” DeLauro said. To Farber and Bellamy, she said: “You have created a political grassroots group that has changed the face of Connecticut politics. We are asking you to do it again.”
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