VERY disturbing story coming out of Conn.

[beachmom]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4385928

Blumenthal has been saying he served in Vietnam, when in reality he took multiple deferements, serving only in the Marine Reserves (which was basically like Bush's service in TX) specifically because they weren't sent to Vietnam. This is not good. In fact, this is very, very bad. He just comes across to me as very strange -- he was even upset for being spat on when coming home! He never left! And there is no evidence any vet was ever spat on! Anyway, his campaign is pushing back, but the NYT seems to have done their research.

[karynnj]

1. This is disturbing

It sounds like he picked up themes that Kerry has rightfully used and has in several instances clearly stepped over a rhetorical line. Had he been clear to always refer to "Vietnam era" rather then Vietnam and always said reserve corps, this could be the press simply misstating what he said - but the comments of being rejected when he "returned", can't be explained away. the only question is whether there are direct quotes that can't be explained away - which sounds like the case.

You can point out that the Republicans completely inflated W's heroic time as a fighter pilot in the National Guard, but he personally never said he went to Vietnam. Reagan spoke of being in WWII, though he served in Hollywood. The NYT article is fair, but they are more insistent on the National Guard being a shelter from the war than they were with Bush - where they pointed out the rare exceptions. (Outside the MSM, there people who bizarrely still attack Kerry for trying to get n (as high as 6) deferments and only reluctantly going, while claiming Bush really really wanted to go. The fact is that Kerry was better connected than Cheney, Clinton and Blumenthal. If he had wanted a deferment as much as they did, he could have gotten one.)

As to misspeaking, a certain junior MA Senator routinely uses the phrase "because I am in the military" very very often and refers to his rank. This is also misleading - ignoring that he was a JAG officer and his work was never in combat.

But, this is disturbing because it goes to trust - and this looks like a big lie. Now, it may end up mushier that reporters simply got it wrong - and that has happened on some things. Both Hillary and Kerry were referred to as valedictorians - though neither was. Kerry corrected people many times explaining why he was chosen to speak and, at least in Tour of Duty, his comments suggested he was a less than diligent student. No one expected his grades to be what they were. (How often was it said that Bill Clinton chose the smartest girl in the class?)

[MBS]

2. this was big front-page story in hard-copy NYT this morning

absolutely impossible to miss, even for casual reader.
When Dodd announced his retirement, the universal opinion was that Blumenthal had a better chance than Dodd in 2010.. seemed a shoo-in. Sigh.
This is a bummer indeed.
Why the need to lie about something like this, especially at a time (as the article pointed out) when lots of people, including 2 presidents and at least one vice-president, were doing everything they could to get out of Vietnam?

[Mass]

3. What a tempest in a teapot.

As far as I can see in an article, Blumenthal lied once, though it seems more a slip of the tongue than anything else (sometimes staying close to the line without crossing it is hard.) The rest of the article is reporters not doing their jobs (apparently 8 in 6 years - not as if he was campaigning as being a Vietnam Vet). Sure, you can object he did not correct him, but aside that, this is really a big deal about nothing.

At least this avoids them to put real news on first page.

I hope he will come back, and frankly, if he is smart, he will, because there is so little in this article, but he would be a good senator and the alternative is really bad.

[beachmom]

4. I don't see how you can say there is "little" in the story.

I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but there were quotes in there, direct quotes, that don't look good. However, what is most important is Blumenthal's pushback. How he handles this. It better be good.

[Mass]

I saw two quotes. One where he is clearly crossing the line,

the other one (the one where he speaks of going home, which is more dubious. He clearly gives a wrong impression, but, not knowing his life, he may have been subjected to what he describes or see others be subjected to that. There is no way to know. Given the few times reported, it is not as if he went campaigning as being a Vietnam Vet. He clearly did not correct the false impression that was spread, but I am not sure that he spoke that often about the issue in the first place.

I still dont think it is worth a front page article. The guy has been CT Attorney General for ever, has a good record, is well liked (even my Republican aunt likes him). I think and hope he will come back, but as I said, there are more important things in the world than a couple of quotes where Blumenthal has stretched the truth. It would be a different thing if he was fighting on his war record. He is not.

[Inuca]

6. Does it look like

something he can credibly push back against? As I said below, I did not look at the article and I doubt I will have the time to do it today.

Oh Chris Dodd, come back :-(!

[beachmom]

8. CT is a blue state and has a deep bench. Dodd is still toast in that state.

As to push back, see Nate Silver's article below. The pushback seems weak tea to me. Given what he wrote in the Harvard Crimson, I think Mr. Blumenthal was deeply affected by the Vietnam War, the draft, the guilt of not going, etc. Although he seems similar to Bush & Cheney as to not serving in Vietnam, it seems he felt really bad about it.

[karynnj]

10. Why was Bush able to conflate his fighter pilot National Guard serve that he sort of

did with military service. The right wing actually compared it positively to Kerry's service. No one has called Senator Brown's repeated description of himself as being in the military - even referring to an n year military career.

In 2004, Bush people claimed that not counting the NG as equivalent was an insult to all the NG in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Note - I do think this is bad, nut I think he should be able to address this. It is not that he has run as a Vietnam Vet.

[Inuca]

5. Just heard about it

on Morning Joe. Did not read the article, nor do I have the time to. My jaw dropped and I am sure I had a huge WTF written all over my face. On MJ, they were saying that the information came from what's her name, the R candidate associated with wrestling :shrug:

[beachmom]

7. This is interesting and worth a read:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/1/13/how-much-division-is-the-draft/

Blumenthal's article in the Harvard Crimson in 1967 about the draft.

Also, Nate Silver thinks CT should nominate someone else:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/in-connecticut-dems-may-need-to-draft.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Mass]

9. Obviously lying about his record (from the AP)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/17/AR2010051704418.html

In a televised March debate, Blumenthal stated clearly he had not actually served in Vietnam during the conflict when asked a question about using military force in Iran.

This is why the story in the Times is such a nonsense. There is exactly ONE quote in the article supporting their accusation, to which he has already answered he misspoke. They publish accusations by the GOP candidate and cant even be bothered researching long enough to find the quote above.

This said, there are political reasons for that. The Democratic Convention is Friday, and, as things stood yesterday, Blumenthal would have been nominated candidate and there would have been no primary, something that could not please his GOP opponents who were going to have to fight in a primary. So, I wonder why the GOP sent that to the Times!.

[ProSense]

11. The whole thing is weird.

I watched the clip of the lie, and it's hard to imagine how someone could make such a mistake. The only thing that may explain it is that he was referring to his time in Marine Reserves 70s. Still, why wasn't he called on it then?

What we have is a two-year-old misstatement vs. the recent and accurate one from the March debate.

Weird. This reminds me of Bill Richardson, who repeatedly claimed he was drafted by a MLB team.

[beachmom]

12. There is a YouTube of that lie, though. I'm sorry, but there is a margin of error here of zero.

Imagine if I said even once, "When I served in Iraq". It would be completely odd and bizarre even if all the other times I said I hadn't.

I'm with Josh Marshall that this is extremely embarrassing. I feel like that is what it is, instead of scandalous which would be putting it on his bio, etc. Why claim something so demonstrably untrue?

[karynnj]

13. True, but what of Scott Brown speaking of 30 plus years "in the military"

(something Joe Sestak can say, but not Brown) and referring to himself as this article shows - "Brown describes himself as “probably one of the most qualified soldiers in the entire Massachusetts ,’’ having been an enlisted man and trained in infantry, airborne, and quartermaster duties and joining the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in 1994." http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/07/guard_service_a_key_to_candidate_brown/?page=3

Now, plenty of MA NG soldiers actually had long tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also what does he mean that he was an "enlisted man"? From the definition here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlisted_rank , it seems to mean that he was actually in a branch of the military.

[Mass]

14. He said it ONCE. He may have mispoken.

"When I served in Vietnam" vs "When I served during the Vietnam War". Certainly, he should not have talked loosely about this. I dont disagree. But is it worth that much outrage, not only in the media and the RW, but among Democrats.

This still does not justify a first page article in the NYTimes, poorly researched and written as a prosecutor would do (missing quote where he said he did not serve in Vietnam, which he probably would not have said if he wanted to lie (vs making an error). I dont think it is wrong to ask why the Times gave such proeminence to a story that, IMHO, is not worth it, just a week before the Democratic Convention.

[Inuca]

25. Supposedly

he said it more than once (I think this is what he said himself yesterday, didn't he?) + press mentions that he served IN Vietnam that were not denied. Crazy week for me, so all I have time to do is watch a bit of news at night and spend a few moments here with my morning coffee, so I do not know much. But it stinks :-(.

[MBS]

15. he's making a good statement . right now. .

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream2

briefing live from West Hartford

[beachmom]

16. Yeah, he said he meant to say "during" but said "in".

Here is some talking points from the DSCC showing him talk about his service correctly:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/dscc-memo-on-blumenthal.html

[beachmom]

17. Okay, I am beginning to think Mass has a point that it was basically

one time. And Blumenthal has done a pretty good job at pushback:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/18/867559/-Blumenthals-Fierce-Response-to-Times-Hit-Jobwith-video

And frankly, some of the snide remarks made by liberal pundits on Twitter have stiffened my resolve to push back on any wholesale notion that he's toast, history, etc. One was comparing him to Spitzer. I mean, seriously? Did Blumenthal break the law? Is he a total hypocrite?

Provided nothing else comes out, it seems he is a pretty strong candidate, and has significant backing from CT vets. He also seems to be a fighter.

Edit: Unfortunately, this race has been downgraded to a toss up:

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/05/18/connecticut_senate_race_moved_to_toss_up.html

[beachmom]

18. If the NYT article was catastrophic for Blumenthal, this NPR report does the same to newspapers

who ROYALLY screwed up their reporting on Blumenthal. The best? Some of these newspapers would report about his service correctly in one article & then call him a "Vietnam veteran" in the next.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126961374&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source

I realize that this whole subject is a bit OT but this really gets at our frustrations with how the Globe covered John Kerry's Vietnam service.

Also incredible: newspaper articles written by journalists who have all been laid off!!

[MBS]

19. this is an excellent article.

Most of the time, I find NPR to be the most reliable and thoughtful news source. ("On the Media" is a particular favorite. . they should have a good commentary on this episode)

[beachmom]

20. Yes, I thought it was good BUT some reports have come out and Blumenthal's

poll numbers have collapsed in CT. A total free fall. I am not sure he is going to survive this. Plus the NYT is pounding this story -- they have clearly made up their mind that he should not be a Senator. Conn. Dems should have a Plan B.

I just got a link to a local NPR program in Conn., and WOW -- all these vets calling in defending Blumenthal. They said that if you served during the time of a conflict then the military does say you served in the war.

I just don't what to think about this race, but you can call me intrigued. I wonder if John Kerry will at some point weigh in. It's still early, but seeing that Dodd backs Blumenthal, and Kerry is close to Dodd . . . well, who knows.

[karynnj]

21. It will be interesting to watch what happens with poll numbers

It is far too early to see anything. The polling done yesterday likely captured the worse point. The story was out and everywhere and he had not likely had a chance to respond. Even then he was 3 points ahead on rassmussen. This is really capturing Blumenthal at a point his campaign was hit and there were no hits on his opponent. http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-richard-blumenthal-senate-vietnam-0519,0,7526534.story It is worrying and I'm sure there will be more polling as this week progresses. (This has some interesting analysis - http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2010/05/19/ct-sen-poll-blumenthal-plummets/ This is interesting - A quarter of voters said Blumenthal should drop out, including just 9% of Democrats )

I suspect that the timing of this was deliberate and an attempt to have a real primary in CT. The CT newspaper column suggesting a plan B that I saw on GD OP, is written by a man who was always pro Alpert and anti Blumenthal. (I know nothing of Alpert other than he is a wealthy businessman, who though politically active, has never run for any office before.) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8364059&mesg_id=8367456

What really bothers me is that I suspect that this is simply a public servant reading a staff written speech over a teleprompter, not catching the problem. (It amazes me that simply admitting that would be a negative, though I assume both the staff writing the speech and a teleprompter are norms.) There does not seem a deliberate intent to deceive. The information in his biographies and his website were all accurate.

I know nothing of this man, but it seems that there is a problem with giving more weight to something that likely was just misspeaking - which anyone will occasionally do - than to a three decade career where he has had an impeccable reputation. It just seems that we are moving into an environment that is constantly more willing to completely destroy people's reputations.

Politically, there are, of course, other things to consider. The main one is whether he or another Democrat (one of people who gained no traction against him, Dodd?, someone switching from the Governor race if that is still allowed) would be more likely to win. I would guess that it could lead to a primary that, at least, would give time to see if this really is a problem or not.

I would assume that if he becomes the nominee, Kerry will be one of the most useful people supporting him. The comments he was making actually sound like things Kerry says constantly.

[fedupinBushcountry]

22. From the controversal video

which by the way was dragged up by his repub opponent, who knows if it was edited. Watch he correctly states that he swerved in the military during the Vietnam era. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/connecticut-senate-2010-e_n_530932.html

BTW this is the opponent's husband

[karynnj]

23. There are claims that it was edited - a longer version exists

this per Babylonsister's op - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8369611

[beachmom]

26. Remember Scott Brown's pictures that somehow helped him get elected.

New England (where I'm from) has embarrassed itself recently.

[BlueIris]

24. While I'm suspending judgment, (for now) this situation makes me unhappy.

Shades of Larry Lawrence.

[beachmom]

27. NYT public editor now looking into the Blumenthal coverage:

http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201005200008

I hope you guys don't mind me staying on this beat here. There is something going on that doesn't feel right, especially the NYT's agressive behavior. But I also am curious about Blumenthal and why he would misspeak on this. He has an absolute STELLAR record of helping vets.

[MH1]

29. I very much appreciate you staying on the beat

Cause I'm up to my neck now catching up at work from the last week. :)

I just posted this below but bears repeating: no one seemed to get too uptight about American Legion commander Morin, who called himself a 'Vietnam veteran' for years when he only served in Ft. Dix.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/03/legion_chief_alters_line_on_war_service/

Then of course as someone else pointed out somewhere, there was W claiming "I've been to war ..." :puke:

Whenever I tell people I was in the military, if it's possible to fit it in, I mention that the most dangerous place I ever went was Korea. (S. Korea is technically still at war with N. Korea, but ya know.)

[MH1]

28. Well what about Amer. Legion Commander Morin who misrepresented his service for YEARS?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/03/legion_chief_alters_line_on_war_service/

I'm late to the party here so apologies if I'm reposting 'old news' on this thread. But this was my first thought when I saw this.

Morin attacked JK's service remember? Turns out he was a fraud himself.

I'm not fully up to date on the Blumenthal story (still recovering from Tuesday night :) ) but from what I've seen it looks like a hatchet job on him for something that may have been innocently careless. Or not. One of these days I'll get it all sifted through. But in any case huge damage is done - even if it turns out he didn't really do anything so wrong, the lie (if it is a lie) is already set in people's minds. (I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that someone in politics would resort to such tactics ... sigh)

[beachmom]

30. I think there is some sympathy for Blumenthal at the Kerry office:

http://twitter.com/BrianYoung

Journalists now say Richard Blumenthal's biggest sin was not correcting them when they screwed up their reporting. Huh? http://is.gd/chxLU

[beachmom]

31. I missed this post by Markos last night.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5/19/867993/-CT-Sen:-NY-Times-blows-Blumenthal-story

His feelings mirror my own:

I trusted the NY Times to get the story right, and believed the paper when it claimed Blumenthal had a history of misrepresenting his service history. As a veteran, it pissed me off.

Now I'm pissed at the NY Times for not properly doing its job, and denying its readers the available information necessary for its readers to properly assess the situation.

I trusted the newspaper. You'd think I would've learned my lesson after Judith Miller.

I recommend the whole post which includes links to a CT writer who cites 12 reporters in Conn. all who said Blumenthal NEVER missrepresented his service to them.

This recommended diary as well is good:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5/19/867919/-(UPDATED)The-NewYork-Times-lied-about-the-Blumenthal-story

I just watched the video and it is clear to me he was talking in short hand. He wasn't lying. I really feel he has been smeared. It is a quick shorthand especially since saying "I was in the Marine reserves during the Vietnam era" is kind of a mouthful. Conn. folks talk fast and try to shorten what we say because we're in a hurry. That is what happened. I just don't see the sort of bragging "I was in the war" kind of tone there.

Anyway, maybe I am wrong and it is wishful thinking, but I don't see overembellishing braggadocio in that video, which is what he was accused of in the Times.

[karynnj]

32. That's how I feel as well

and like Markos, I realize that the whole Judith Miller thing - which was NOT innocent should have taught me. (For that matter, the groupie like coverage that Elizabeth Brumiller gave George Bush vs the always snarky Adam Nagourney, who never found a single thing in Kerry's career that could nor be twisted and Jodi Wilgorin, who after speaking to 20 life long, very close, Kerry friends, wrote he was a social loner. I wonder how much the lukewarm praise from an ostensibly liberal paper, which people expect to favor the Democrat, hurt. Given the enormous praise of Bush's second inaugural speech, it is clear their theme likely was "Give Neoconism a chance".

I really commend Markos for showing his anger at being deceived by the NYT. It hurts me, as someone who still remembers, myself as a newcomer to NJ delighting in having the NYT delivered as my paper. I think this will hurt the NYT - and they deserve it. It is appalling that they stood behind there writer, even to saying there was no reason to mention the full version of that speech.

This really is very scary. It is hard enough to deal with a few misspoken words being twisted into a malstrom that ignores the entire career of a candidate. The long list of CT reporters was very good - and is an obvious resource the campaign should use.

[beachmom]

33. Lindsay Graham did the same thing. I disagree with Salon that it was a big deal:

http://www.salon.com/news/lindsey_graham/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/05/20/lindsey_graham_war_liar

According to his (current) official bio, "Graham logged six-and-a-half years of service on active duty as an Air Force lawyer." After he left the active duty force, he joined the South Carolina Air National Guard. During the first Gulf War, Graham was called up to act as staff judge advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Base in South Carolina. As staff judge advocate, Graham's duties "included briefing pilots on the law of armed conflict, preparing legal documents for deploying troops, and providing legal services for family members of the South Carolina Air National Guard. " His service never took him out of South Carolina.

And so, naturally, for years afterward, Lindsey Graham referred to himself in his official biography and elsewhere as "an Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm veteran."

The truth came out in 1998, while then-Rep. Graham was working hard to impeach Bill Clinton. The Hill newspaper broke the story that he was calling himself a vet despite not being one. Graham insisted he had never explicitly said he served overseas or saw combat, but any reading of his official bio made it obvious that he wanted to people to think he did.

I think the reason why it didn't sink him was because it wasn't about serving in Vietnam. And frankly, I don't think what he said was a lie. That is what CT vets said yesterday on that NPR radio show. That if you are serving in the military during war time, that you are serving in that war. Just not overseas.

[beachmom]

34. Even the trivial in that NYT piece was wrong:

NYT

On a less serious matter, another flattering but untrue description of Mr. Blumenthal’s history has appeared in profiles about him. In two largely favorable profiles, the Slate article and a magazine article in The Hartford Courant in 2004 with which he cooperated, Mr. Blumenthal is described prominently as having served as captain of the swim team at Harvard. Records at the college show that he was never on the team.


Fact:

http://blogs.courant.com/capitol_watch/2010/05/blumenthal-and-the-harvard-swi.html

The Times story says that "ecords at the college show that he was never on the team.''

But Waterbury native Peter Alter, who was the captain of the Harvard swim team in 1968, the year after Blumenthal graduated, told the Courant this morning that Blumenthal was on the team.

He was a freestyler and "was actually a pretty good one,'' said Alter, now a lawyer in Glastonbury who still on occasion talks to Blumenthal.

...

Alter, who was a diver and only the second diver in school history to be named captain, said it is a "big deal to be named captain" of any Harvard sports team.

Alter said he talked to Blumenthal a few years ago, when both of them were at a function. The two men joked about the inaccurate references to Blumenthal being the team captain. The attorney general told Alter "he had no idea where it came from."

"He said he had tried to figure out where it had started and that he had never claimed to have been the captain,'' Alter said.

There is a picture of him at the link.

It is looking more and more to me like the NYT just took that lady's oppo research, only did perfuntory research, then ran with the story. The above may be a minor detail (although it was supposed to show what a bragging unlikeable embellisher Blumenthal was) but it points to (dare I say it) a PATTERN of the NYT fudging this story.

[beachmom]

35. On the other hand . . .

More instances have now been found of Blumenthal saying he came home from Vietnam, etc. This does not absolve the New York Times of the flaws in their article, and the DC crowd to pile on before getting all the facts. BUT, this Hartford Courant writer has been very fair, and he sees a problem for Blumenthal for which he needs to come clean on it:

http://blogs.courant.com/colin_mcenroe_to_wit/2010/05/blumenthal-fire-blazes-up.html

My feeling that the Times published a shoddy piece does not equal a feeling that Blumenthal is sin-free. And if a lot of new instances like this one turn up, he's going to die a death by 1,000 cuts.

To stop it, he'll have to own the problem even more than he has so far. He'll have to say something like, "I was not aware of doing this at the time, but I clearly have a tendency to get swept up in a rush of enthusiasm and kinship, when I'm talking about veterans, and to make it sound like I served with them in Vietnam when, obviously, I didn't. I'm embarrassed by this and will do what I can to make it up to them." He's going to have to embrace, essentially, Chris Shay's argument -- that Blumenthal had gotten kind of weird in the way he talked about himself and Vietnam. It's counterintuitive, but the way to survive something like this is to say something so big about yourself that it renders further news developments moot. You want to stop the cyclings of news. If you're Larry Craig, you say "I'm gay" and that makes all new proofs of your gay behavior not interesting. You have to be honest with yourself and your handlers about how big the problem is and acknowledge it right away at that size, instead of letting it drip, drip, drip into a pool of that size.

If Mr. Blumenthal is not willing to do something about this problem, then someone else should be the Democratic nominee in Conn. Because the entire campaign is going to be about what the latest research has brought up about his past statements of his military service. It will be about nothing else.

[beachmom]

36. But The Daily Howler (who repeatedly defended Kerry amidst terrible treatement from the BG)

remains skeptical of the reports.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh052110.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh052010.shtml

The issue with the new reports that came out is that they are from newspapers, not audio or video. I don't exactly trust the press at this point.

This story is a tough one.

[karynnj]

38. The writer also wrote the NYT story that pushed the story that Rahm and others pushed Massa out

because he voted against them and was still a "no" on the healthcare bill. (He is responsible for the naked Rahm in the showers story)

If you look over all his stories (the NYT is helpful here in having this summarized) they are mostly negative on the NY area Democrats - including Gillibrand. The Cuomo article is not particulary negative - but all the others are. (He does not cover Patterson, who deserves negative coverage.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=433&topic_id=307043

[beachmom]

37. Last post on this subject here:

Looks like Blumenthal will definitely be the Democratic nominee for Senate in Conn. It is problematic that nobody is going to primary him. Because if he had a primary fight, he would have either lost or shown his grit to fight back and come out stronger for the general. Now we have a candidate who has been wounded and no Plan B for Democrats.

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/diary/12544/thoughts-on-convention-did-merrick-follow-my-advice

http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Dems-still-love-their-Blumenthal-496047.php

I hope and pray we keep this seat. Because there is a chance we won't and we are in danger of the Senate going to the Republicans if we can't hold safe seats like Connecticut.

[Inuca]

39. Scary

IL is not doing that well either :-(