The Anti-Dodd? It Ain’t Rob

March 19, 2009

When ex-CIA agent and former congressman Rob Simmons announced last week that he’s seeking the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, a thrill went up the collective leg of GOP hacks.

Dogged by ethical lapses and his role in Washington’s bungled handling of the financial crisis, Dodd has lost the support of many constituents, and one poll has Simmons running even with the incumbent.

But Nutmeg State liberty-lovers should not let glee over their senior senator’s much-deserved electoral woes transform them into Rob Robots. A look at the record reveals that from a public-policy perspective, replacing Dodd with Simmons wouldn’t be much of an improvement.

Simmons was in Congress for three terms, enough time for the National Taxpayers Union to give him six grades on votes that affected “taxes, spending, debt, and regulatory burdens on consumers and taxpayers.” In 2001, his first NTU score -- 100 is the best, 0 the worst -- was a less-than-stellar 58. Over the years, Simmons became even more enamored of Big Government, with a final score of 36. (Even Chris “Both Ways” Shays posted numbers in the 70s and 80s early in his congressional career, before plunging to Simmonsesque levels at the end.)

In a recent op-ed, Simmons thundered that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus” package “vastly expands the size of government, increases our national debt, [and] mortgages future generations.” That’s a pretty odd perspective from someone who was once maniacally committed to “public investments.” During his time in Washington, no program was too big or too tiny to preserve or create for the 2nd District. Simmons fought fiercely for more funding for the billion-dollar boondoggle that is the Virginia-class submarine -- a weapon former Reagan administration official Lawrence Korb believes is “designed to fight threats from a bygone era” and does not “provide significant new capabilities beyond” the existing Los Angeles class. Simmons procured countless smaller federal freebies for eastern Connecticut, including $4.75 million for a ferry district’s terminal in New London, $584,000 for UConn’s “Food Marketing Policy Center,” and $100,000 for the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry. (“I go to schools, I go to factories, I deliver checks,” Simmons told a reporter in 2004. “I like to go out and deliver the money … . I just find that this becomes second nature to me.”)

Per standard operating procedure for liberal Republicans, Simmons seized every opportunity to tell voters that he was nothing like George W. Bush. But the administration’s worst ideas (invading Iraq, adding prescription drugs to Medicare, signing McCain-Feingold) Simmons supported. The few sound proposals the 43rd president offered (drilling for oil in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, taking a minor step toward privatizing Social Security, eliminating the Community Services Block Grant program, cutting Amtrak) he opposed.

While Simmons may not have Dodd’s lax ethics, he’s benefitted -- legally, of course -- from Connecticut’s sleazy political culture. Along with several other GOPers rejected by voters in 2006, he quickly landed a sinecure in state government. Apparently, it didn’t trouble Governor M. Jodi Rell that Connecticut’s new “business advocate” had neither founded nor managed a for-profit enterprise. Other inconvenient truths tossed aside: his opposition to Broadwater Energy’s proposed natural-gas facility, flip-flop on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, desire for a higher federal minimum wage, and relentless cultivation of Big Labor. (In his final congressional race, 19 union PACs donated to the Simmons campaign.)

With his position recently eliminated by an inter- and intra-party imbroglio in Hartford, Simmons needs a new gig, and it came as no surprise that finding a private-sector job wasn’t a priority. He’s the frontrunner to be Dodd’s GOP challenger, but happily, three others have emerged as possibilities: CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, State Senator Sam Caligiuri, and investment guru Peter Schiff.

Each is preferable to Simmons. Kudlow is an economist and television host whose longtime dedication to free trade and limited government are badly needed in an export-dependent state that suffers from the heaviest federal tax burden. Caligiuri isn’t perfect -- he favors legislation to address feminists’ specious “pay inequity” crusade -- but the state senator has been a reliable voice for tax cuts and expenditure restraint since winning his 16th District seat in 2006. Schiff may be the best of the trio. In a recent interview with Fairfield County Weekly, he said the federal government needs to shrink by “at least by two-thirds.”

If you’d like another Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, or Arlen Specter in the U.S. Senate, get behind the Simmons campaign. If not, back one of the three far superior alternatives.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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