Murphy's law

Chris Murphy is the Democrat candidate for senate in Connecticut this year. It is his first statewide race, and in view of the huge advantage for Democrats in this state, Murphy ought to be way ahead of his GOP opponent. Murphy, however, has fallen behind according to the latest poll. It seems that for the first time in his political career, Murphy is running against someone who is prepared to tell voters who Murphy really is.

Let me explain. The GOP candidate is Linda McMahon, the extremely wealthy wrestling owner/executive. She has adequate funding, something new for a Murphy opponent. As soon as the primary was over two weeks ago, McMahon started running a TV ad that pointed out Murphy's failure to show up in Congress. During the financial crisis, Murphy missed 80% of the meetings of his assigned committee whose job it was to deal with that crisis. The ads ask the salient question: how can Murphy do his job if he won't even show up to work? Most people in Connecticut have no idea who Murphy is, so these ads introduced Murphy to many people as yet another freeloader politician who spent his time worrying about elections rather than about doing things that might benefit the country. The impact was great.

The Murphy campaign decided that it had to hit back. It put out the word in ads and in the media that the McMahon ad was false. Congress, you see, was not even in session during the period that McMahon was referencing. Murphy did not fail to show up; there was no reason to be there. It was a surprising position and one, if true, that would doom McMahon. How could she launch a totally phony attack like that?

It took about a day or so for the news media to investigate Murphy's claims. It turns out that no only was Congress in session during the time period, it was passing some very important financial bills that came right out of the committee in question. Perhaps the biggest one of these bills was the Troubled Asset Relief Program which is better known as TARP. Murphy missed all of the committee consideration and Congressional debate of TARP. The Hartford Courant labelled the Murphy counterattack on McMahon as bogus. Murphy, it seems, was the one who was lying.

McMahon now has ads running across the state letting the folks know that Murphy is a liar on top of being a typical self-interest pol. I do not know how many people are actually paying attention, but I am sure that those who see these ads have had their views of Murphy colored for certain.

If Obama wins big in Connecticut (which is certainly possible), Murphy may still get dragged across the finish line by that momentum. On the other hand, if the presidential vote is even reasonably close here, McMahon may win. For Murphy, everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong.