The Republicans are starting to stir in the race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Senator Joe Lieberman. Tonight during a taping of “Face the State with Dennis House” on WFSB-TV in Hartford, Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy announced he is throwing his hat in the ring.
The two-term mayor of this Hartford suburb is regarded as a rising star in the Connecticut Republican Party, a close ally of former Governor Jodi Rell and 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee Tom Foley. McCoy briefly considered running for Attorney General last year, and also rebuffed overtures to challenge Congressman Joe Courtney in CT-2.
McCoy made headlines in November, when he exposed irregularities at a Bridgeport polling place on election night. Ballot problems in Connecticut’s largest city delayed the official results in the governor’s race by two weeks. McCoy was working as a poll monitor when he used his cell phone to record some questionable behavior by a poll worker.
During the taping of “Face the State,” McCoy said he decided to run for the U.S. Senate after watching what he calls the lack of action by Congress, particularly on budget issues. He criticized the three Democratic candidates, Susan Bysiewicz, Chris Murphy and William Tong as big spending Democrats.
McCoy’s entrance into the race comes a week before the expected announcement of 2010 nominee Linda McMahon that she is running again. Former CT-4 Congressman Chris Shays told me he plans to announce his candidacy for the Senate on October 5th.
I asked McCoy how he plans to beat two political heavyweights. McCoy, who just turned 40, said the state needs “someone a little younger and more enthusiastic.” Shays turns 66 next month, McMahon, 63. He also pointed out that he has more political experience than McMahon, and he suggested that Shays’ experience was not “Republican enough.” Hartford Attorney Brian K. Hill is also seeking the GOP nomination.
The last time a Republican won a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut was 1982, when then Senator Lowell Weicker was re-elected. The last time Republicans won an open seat was in 1952, when Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of the Presidents Bush, was elected.
Here is the interview: http://www.wfsb.com/video?clipId=6265896&topVideoCatNo=213439&autoStart=true
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Dennis House blog 
Republicans defeated a sitting incumbent in 1970 when Lowell Weicker defeated Tom Dodd who was a two term incumbent who didn’t get endorsed for his third run and lost a primary to Joe Duffey. Dodd went on to run as a petitioning candidate. Now granted it wasn’t an “open seat” but it was a more recent case of a Republican winning a US Senate seat in Connecticut.
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No mention of Brian K. Hill? Shame on you!
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Oh wait … strike my last comment… with my aopologies.
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Let Shays run as a Democrat. He’s closer to that ideology. Linda McMahon should start a charity to help people pay for their heat this winter. She can do much more to help Connecticut than waste tens of millions of her dollars again on another Ego trip!
We need new blood. Voters are so stupid, only something very different might bring them out of their zombie trance!
If
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If you liked Chris Dodd, be sure to vote for Chris Murphy. If he wins you got him for life! The incumbent gang of Job Killers must be invisible! People keep voting the same gang. Voters should shut up about the taxes, lack of jobs and inflation! Insanity is a political plague in this state.
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I am a republican. I am saddened by what is happening to the once ” Grand Old Party” I grew up knowing. A party, that once embraced the likes of, Lincoln,T Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan I fear has become so intolerant that these great men would not be “enough of a republican” to be acceptable by today’s rigid ideology.With regard to Congressman Shays,he served with integrity and the courage of his convictions both in congress and the statehouse.
The fact that there are a few men and women like Mr.Shays ,who welcome healthy debate and challenge the narrow minded principles so prevalent within the party these days,gives me the glimmer of hope that Reagan’s “Big Tent” has not silently slipped away.
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No more Republicans, thanks! Cutting taxes on the wealthy just drives our nation into deeper debt and it does not create jobs.
We need tax cuts on the middle class. We need tax increases on the wealthy. How about we have the cut/increases expire in 3 years so the country can decide then if they are still needed?
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Please just STFU!!! Do you really believe the crap you just posted. No wonder CT is dead last in job creation, we have idiots like you constantly voting in job killing fools like malloy and murphy.
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Jason needs to conquer his Caroline Kennedy “yah know” problem. I am acquainted with a number of former USMC Drill Instructors who could help cure this very quickly.
Best regards,
Reg Templeton
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Don’t forget the Libertarian candidate! (that’d be me)
My goal is to give the people of the State an option that will reinvigorate the Constitution. We are The Constitution State after all…
Electing someone that is or will be in debt to the Party powers from the Dem or GOP is equivalent to accepting the status quo and asking for more of the same nonsense from Washington!
The professional politicos have *FAILED TO DELIVER*. I’m an engineer running as a Libertarian, because my goal is to go to DC for a short time, stir up some action, and then return to my life as a *civilian* having performed what I see as my civic duty.
I hope that folks will want to know more about where I stand on the issues. Please visit: http://Passarelli4Senate.com/ for more information.
Libertarian: Less Government. More Freedom.
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