Latest Blumenthal Recall Should Be For Campaign Slogan.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last week telegraphed a clumsy plan to win a seat in the United States Senate by convincing the public he is not now nor has he ever been a political insider. He proclaimed last week, “I’m not reluctant to say that I’ve never been a part of Washington. I’ve never been an insider.” The evidence says he’s making it up.  Someone call the Department of Consumer Protection.  Mr. Blumenthal will have to farm this complaint out to a law firm on his list of inside favorites–maybe one that’s contributed to his campaign.

Long before he tried not to be tagged an insider, Mr. Blumenthal first won elective office touting his bona fides as a big, from-Washington-to-Hartford, I-know-them-all insider.  According to the April 9, 1984 edition of The Stamford Advocate, Sergeant Blumenthal ran for the Connecticut legislature in a special election that year on the cumbersome but revealing slogan, “He has worked for governors, senators and presidents.  Now let him work for you.”

Mr. Blumenthal won that election, defeating Stamford City Representative Jeremiah Livingston, a Democrat endorsed by the local Republican party.  Mr. Livingston, according to The Advocate, worked as a machine-setter at Pitney Bowes.  He was a seven-term city representative, who served as chairman of the Stamford Charter Revision committee, a member of its Fiscal Committee, and chairman of the Black Caucus. Mr. Blumenthal had worked for President Richard Nixon, a Republican.

Mr. Blumenthal, who’d recently moved into the district, couldn’t match those local credentials.  Instead, he had political star power.  Here’s how the paper described the lofty Mr. Blumenthal on the eve of his first victory:

“Blumenthal, 38, who has been backed by several high-level Democrats including Gov. William O’Neill, has based his campaign largely on his background in various high-level political and judicial appointments, including a stint in the White House. He founded and chairs the Citizen’s Crime Commission, an ad hoc group of concerned citizens seeking reforms in the state’s judicial system. He is a partner in the law firm of Cummings and Lockwood of Stamford. This is his first run for public office.

“He has stressed his personal relationships with legislators and political leaders in Hartford and Washington, and has said that the key issue of the election is leadership. He has used the campaign slogan, “He has worked for governors, senators and presidents. Now let him work for you.’”

That wasn’t the hallmark of an outsider in 1984-which was the point of the slogan–and Blumenthal’s spent the last 26 years inside the citadels of power and influence.  And he’s hoping for 6 more.