(Cross-posted from Daily Kos.)

As DavidNYC noted in his Orange-to-Blue endorsement post of Jim Himes yesterday, Chris Shays has a history of pretending to be a "moderate" while voting again and again for Bush's policies.

This morning, Shays joined many in both parties in Congress by standing with Bush again on the FISA "compromise".

In fact, Chris Shays has been busy doing his best impersonation of a Blue Dog all week, voting for the war supplemental without timelines that passed yesterday before voting for the for the disastrous FISA bill that passed today.

Democrat Jim Himes is running against faux moderate, Bush enabler Republican Congressman Chris Shays in Connecticut's 4th district this cycle and he's up on the air with his first ad, a great bio spot, check it out below.

This race is personal for me as CT-04 is my home district and in fact a vote for Shays in 1990 was one of the very first votes I ever cast. Now, mind you, back then, and even throughout the 90s, Shays did a decent job of actually representing what was pretty much a moderate district. But since Bush took office, Shays completely betrayed his constituents by standing by as the administration and the congressional leadership, which Shays may not have always agreed with but never did anything to effectively obstruct despite having been in congress since 1987, waged a disastrous war and ran roughshod over our constitution, our planet, our economy...well, the list goes on and on.

Last cycle, Shays was able to skillfully apply an Iraq blurring strategy to barely avoid ouster but this year that's going to be a lot more difficult. Not only is Jim Himes a better candidate with a stronger and clearer position on Iraq than Shays's 2006 challenger, but now there is a congressional record of Shays's voting against any and all bills that would have led to the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Add that to the bluing of the district and the huge uptick in turnout we're likely to see this year, especially in the underperforming urban center of the district, Bridgeport, and the fact that Himes has raised the most money of any challenger this cycle and we have a real shot to finally send the last Republican congressman left in New England packing.

So, do me a favor and watch the ad, rate it up, spread the word about Himes, especially to any family and friends in Connecticut and, of course, contribute what you can to his campaign. Shays has a massive warchest and the Republicans are going to throw everything they have to defend this seat, so we are going to need to really step up in order to elect Jim Himes to represent my Republican parents in CT-04. So, do it for them. Show them what real representation in congress looks like.

As The KickingDonkey informed us on the other day, George Bush traveled to Connecticut on Friday to raise money for David Cappiello, GOP challenger to CT-05 freshman Dem Chris Murphy. The event cost donors $1,000 a head and was held at the Kent, CT home of...wait for it...Henry Kissinger. Classic.

In good blogger style, the CT netroots made sure no one forgot that the exceptionally unpopular Mr. Bush was coming to town and so held a march against the war to protest his arrival. My Left Nutmeg covered it HERE with more pics HERE. Looks like a great turnout.

As for the fundraiser itself, helpfully, the CT Republican Party has provided its own documentary evidence of the event, although a few pictures seem to be missing. In a great catch by MattW, take a look at the CT GOP's Flickr photo stream, and you'll see there's a conspicuous gap of about 7 missing photos between the last shot of David Cappiello and the first picture of George Bush up on the stage with Kissinger. Hmm, why the scrubbing I wonder? Bizarrely, CT-04's Chris Shays, who co-chaired the event, doesn't seem to have the same compunction about appearing with Bush in public.

So to help make Shays, and Cappiello for that matter, regret embracing Mr. 28%, send them a message by supporting Murphy as well as Shays's excellent challenger, Jim Himes, over at Act Blue.

Help offset President Bush's fundraiser against freshman Chris Murphy and challenger Jim Himes.  Donate today!

This Friday, George W. Bush is coming to Henry Kissinger's house in Kent, Connecticut for an exclusive, $1000 a head ($10,000 for a snapshot with the President!) fundraiser for Republican Challenger David Cappiello (running against Democratic Freshman Representative Chris Murphy) in Connecticut's 5th Congressional District.  Bush ally and war cheerleader and health care bamboozler Chris Shays (R-CT04) (who is facing a strong challenge from Jim Himes) is a co-chair of the event.

As I'm based at my parents' house here in CT for a couple of weeks, I thought I ought to go check out their congressman Chris Shays -- aka New England's last remaining Republican House member -- in person at a townhall he held nearby. To his credit, Shays holds a series of these events on weekends to speak to constituents -- he held 4 yesterday and 2 today. Each event runs an hour and a half and is framed as "a conversation." But it quickly became clear to me that this series of townhalls is essentially his "see, really, I'm a liberal, I swear" tour and it was actually sort of sad.

Shays started this "conversation" by running through some sweet graphs he had made up that demonstrate just how independent he is from his party and from Bush. This is a D+5 district after all, he knows the party and the president are at the depths of popularity, but he also knows that this presidential year there is going to be unprecedented turnout among Democrats. He also knows his challenger, Jim Himes, is formidable and is collecting a daunting warchest of his own. So to survive, Shays must paint himself as a liberal, in other words, blur the distinctions between him and Himes as he and Lieberman did successfully on the issue of the war in 2006.

First up was a chart tracking his position on the liberal/conservative continuum. According to National Journal, Shays voted 52% conservative and 48% liberal for 2007. Ahh, yes, right in the center, to the right of Lieberman (57% liberal/43% conservative) and to the left of Chuck Hagel (61% conservative/39% liberal.) Next was how often he voted with Bush. After a peak of 82% in 2002, it dropped to 33% with the Democratic majority in 2007 as compared with 93% of John Boehner. Then he showed us his Republican party unity score: 67% vs. 99% for Boehner and 90% for John McCain.

The fact that he began in such a defensive crouch said a lot, of course, about how vulnerable he believes he is this year, but as he spun his answers to constituent questions, it became even clearer just what a liberal makeover he is attempting.

On the environment and alternative fuels, he bashed Bush for not acting. "The next president needs to do what this president didn't..."

On Iraq, suddenly he regrets his vote. He actually used the words "I wouldn't have voted for it if I'd known how badly Rumsfeld would have managed it." To the best of my knowledge, this is new language. Also, when I confronted him with the fact that in 2006 he advocated a timeline for withdrawal yet every time he was given an opportunity to vote for a timeline he voted against it, he made a point of boasting of his support for another bill that would have had the troops out by end of 08. What he conveniently leaves out was that that bill was not up for a vote. I asked him what a withdrawal bill right now would have to look like to get him to support it. He didn't answer.

And on the topic of what victory in Iraq looks like, to his credit he actually answered the question and it involves a troop presence of 40-60k through end of 2009, which he made a point of saying "is fewer than the 80k Barack Obama's advisor said would be there." The downside to off-message advisors: giving political cover to down-ticket Republicans.

Oh and this was rich: suddenly Shays has a healthcare plan and sounded downright Clintonian and Obamanian on the subject: "Americans should have the same healthcare choices I have as a federal employee."

You know this is going to be the strategy of many of the so-called moderate Republicans running for their lives this year -- a blurring of their entire records with their Democratic opponents, just as they did on Iraq in 06. The blurring has begun, it's up to us to call them on it. It's also really important to promote and support the embarrassment of riches that is our Democratic challengers this year and so please support Jim Himes's campaign if you can.

Good:

John McCain is scheduled to deliver a major foreign policy speech Wednesday in Los Angeles, one with a heavy Iraq focus, but chances are, Democrats won’t be listening. They’ve already distilled his views into an easy-to-remember formulation: 100 years of war.

It is a reference to an offhand remark made by McCain in January about the possible duration of the U.S. presence in Iraq, a comment that Democrats now portray as the equivalent of the McCain Doctrine. [...]

Democratic strategists view the “100 years” remark as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain's national security credentials against him by framing the Vietnam War hero as a warmonger who envisions an American presence in Iraq without end.

I wouldn't exactly say it was an "offhand" remark, however. McCain enthusiastically offered up the 100 years formulation at a townhall meeting, and since has expanded it to 1,000 and even 1,000,000 years to make the point that Americans will be fine with hundreds of years of being in Iraq as long as there are no US casualties. Really? Will they? I look forward to hearing him explain this from now until November because even though his explanation makes rational sense, every time he repeats it, it just reinforces the 100 years frame in people's minds. For this reason, some Democrats hope McCain's 100 years statement will prove to be election year gold.

Some Democrats see the “100 years” comment as this year’s equivalent of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry’s infamous “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” remark — a statement that Republicans used over and over again to underscore their contention that Kerry was a liberal “flip-flopper.”

Kerry’s chief strategist in 2004, Tad Devine, said there are “similarities” between the "100 years" remark and Kerry’s $87 billion comment.

“It’s very easy to remember, No. 1. It’s also underlines a very important attack point that his opponents want to make,” Devine added. “And if McCain looks like he is backpedaling on anything and talking his way out of something, it totally undermines the centerpiece of his candidacy, that he is giving everybody a lot of straight talk."

But McCain isn't the only one who should be asked if he believes we should be in Iraq for 100 years. Every Republican who endorses McCain and/or appears with him, such as Chris Shays who roamed New Hampshire with McCain in January. The Jim Himes campaign put together this excellent video before McCain was the presumptive nominee that asks:

Does Congressman Chris Shays support an endless occupation of Iraq?

Watch it:

Let's make every endangered Republican answer this question and watch them try to distance themselves from their nominee; or if they won't, let them justify to America why they believe 100 years in Iraq would be just fine with them.

Just as I suspected, the moment Chris Shays laid a wet one on Bush at the State of the Union, The Jim Himes campaign was on it.

When George Bush leaves office, let's make sure he takes his friends with him.

Lest we forget, next week not only brings us the long awaited Iowa caucuses but it also marks the end of the year and, with that, the end of the fundraising quarter. Many campaigns are no doubt inundating your inboxes with fundraising asks and I hope you'll consider supporting one or more of our many excellent candidates running next year. I wanted to draw your attention to just one of them.

As I've been home in Connecticut for the holidays, I was lucky enough to meet CT-04 Democratic challenger, Jim Himes, who we all hope will be sending Chris Shays, aka the last Republican left in New England, packing in November. I definitely left the meeting impressed with Himes and excited that we can finally defeat the faux moderate right-wing enabler Shays.

To give you just a sense of the challenger we have in Jim Himes, go check out his liveblog over at FDL from earlier today. An excerpt from his post:

I came across Rockwell's "Freedoms" paintings some time ago, and I was struck by "Freedom from Fear". The paintings, of course, were based on Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms". Fredom from Fear . . . imagine! The administration has used fear--fear of attack, fear of people who look, pray or think differently, fear of immigrants, fear of change--for so long that it's now part of the background noise. I was in Bridgeport for a meeting with community activists a few weeks ago, and a burly African American man stood up to talk passionately about the fear he feels, the sense that government has devoted itself not to giving people like him a leg up or a catch should he fall, but to the narrow interests of people who really don't need its help.

I think a big part of distilling the progressive message in the face of universally bungled government will consist of taking seriously the notion of Freedom from Fear, and addressing the anxiety I sense around my district by pointing out that government once not only protected the vulnerable and the needy, but did great ambitious things that benefited all of us.

Amen!

The Himes campaign is looking to reach 500 Q4 contributors by the end of the quarter Monday night. Can you give him some love at his ActBlue page and help put him over the top? Also can't hurt to join the Himes For Congress Facebook page to keep plugged into what is sure to be one of the top tier congressional races of 2008.

What other candidates are you contributing to this quarter? Let us know in the comments with links.

[editor's note, by Todd Beeton]I should have been more specific, their goal is 500 contributions for the 4th quarter by midnight Monday. As of this update they have 456, let's help them over the top at ActBlue.