2010 House election

Freshman CT Democrat Jim Himes got elected in 2008 by promising not to be George W. Bush, who is who he suggested incumbent Republican Chris Shays was. Now he has to govern. This is displeasing his core supporters.

Jim Himes recently sent out an update-to-constituents email that has a lot of his supporters fuming. Jon Kantrowitz at My Left Nutmeg has a lengthy post up about it. Here’s the offending piece of the email: 

It is clear that the next several years will be the economic equivalent of threading a needle. While we address the massive unfunded liabilities associated with Social Security and Medicare (now well in excess of $50 trillion), we will need to identify the moment at which our nascent recovery is self-sustaining and put on the brakes. If we are to avoid inflation, interest rates will need to go up and government spending will need to go down. Both of those things will be enormously unpopular, but the Federal Reserve and the Congress will need to remember that inflation is far more damaging.

 

 

Progressive Democrats are looking at this as a betrayal, mainly because, as national blogger Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake points out, the numbers that Himes is using come from a conservative billionaire who is apparently creating worst-case scenarios in order to scare legislators into, among other things, cutting back on Social Security benefits. Himes is also promoting pay-as-you-go legislation, which many progressives feel can be misused to block the Obama legislative agenda.

In essence, they see Himes talking like a conservative Blue Dog Democrat. Jon Kantrowitz writes: 

 

I guess you are really worried about being re-elected. But this is not why I voted for you (and contributed generously to your campaign.)

CT Local Politics think Himes is tacking needlessy to the right.  But one thing former Goldman Sachs honcho Jim Himes might understand is numbers.

Himes won by 12,000 votes  in a year where Barack Obama turned out huge numbers of urban Democrats and where Shays' campaign manager was subsquently linked to missing money

I think we can reasonably expect the 2010 Republican campaign will be run better than Shays's 2008 race. And CT 4 tracks far more Republican in off-year elections than recent Presidential races.   A Democrat running for Governor hasn;t broken 40% in this district since 1986.  And don;t look for Chris Dodd to be much help in this high income district. (Fairfield County is running 56% negative on the job approval question).

So Himes looks to be facing a much more skeptical audience to get re-elected, especially if voters sour further on stimulus spending and the Obama agenda. So Himes does what makes sense on policy and crass political grounds--suggest he's ready to shut off the federal money spigot.

And the lefties freak.

I suspect many of these people are what Michael Barone calls "Trustafarians" . ; lefties whose money is old enough and sufficient enough to argue for redistributing it.  Of course, folks like Kantrowitz openly advocating this have had their felt hats handed to them by the local voters.  And they seem to think former Republican strongholds will fall in love with "Buzz Lightyear economics"

Swing District Democrats like Himes may find that the only sort of Democrats their districts will tolerate are Blue Dog-ish devotees of Rubinomics.  But the lefty activists have convinced themselves that socialism works in economics and in politics as well.  And they are not in the reasoning mood right about now.