Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s bid for attorney general makes a return engagement on the shoals on the front page of today’s Hartford Courant. Seems that big database of constituent information Bysiewicz would share with her campaign contained considerably more than addresses of citizens who made an inquiry to her office.  The former insurance company lawyer also included a category for ethnicity.  One wonders how she would obtain that information.

There’s also a notes section. It includes mentions of people’s health, political connections, and even ideological leanings.  What this has to do with being the “managing partner” of the office, as she has described her job, will require a better explanation than she provided in today’s story by Jon Lender.

The campaign will get rougher for the candidate who’s known more for her ambition than her achievements.  She’ll soon get to explain her public office political operation when she takes a star turn under oath in her court action seeking to have herself declared eligible to run for attorney general.

Where Did They Shop?

The Heart papers of Connecticut (Connecticut Post, Danbury News-Times, Greenwich Time, and Stamford Advocate) have posed 16 questions the candidates for governor and the United States Senate.   They’ve also requested a photographer be allowed to take pictures of each candidate’s living room.

What kind of watch do you wear?  Where do you buy your business attire?  What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?

If you were a tree, what kind of tree, oh, sorry, that one’s missing.  Nothing on the economy or issues of war and peace, either.

There is a tone that aims at class division, like Mario Cuomo’s ugly royalty and rabble call to arms.  The most vexing issue personal issue, unmasked in the fullness of time, is whether a candidate possesses a lethal sense of entitlement.  That’s never revealed by what they spend of their own treasure on themselves, but can be seen in what they do with campaign contributions and taxpayers’ money.

Habits and interests can provide insights into candidates. Whether and what a candidate reads can give us a hint at whether or not he possesses any intellectual curiosity, an attribute often overlooked in a campaign. A candidate’s favorite restaurant does not tell us much.

Will they tell the truth?

If South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford had been asked where he goes on vacation, would he have answered, “Argentina, of course”?

Here are the Heart Newspapers’ questions.  The answers and photographs are expected to be published on Sunday.

1. How many residences do you own? What is the size of each house (including lot size)? How many rooms? What is the assessed value? Would you agree to have a photograph taken in your living room?

2. Would you provide us a photocopy of the front sheet of your most recent IRS tax filing, including income, tax deductions and taxes paid?

3) What are the years, makes and models of the personal vehicles owned or leased by you/for you and your immediate family members?

4) Are any boats, planes or recreational vehicles owned by you or leased by you or for you? If so, please provide the particulars.

5) What kind of watch do you wear?

6) Where was your most recent family vacation? Where did you stay?

7) Where do you buy your business attire?

Where do your children attend school?

9) Are you a member of any private clubs – country clubs, dinner clubs, etc.?

10) How much do you pay for a haircut/hairstyling? Where do you go?

11) What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?

12) Do you have any hobbies?

13) What restaurant do you most frequently patronize?

14) With what insurance company do you have family health coverage? Is it employer-provided? What are your own monthly premiums? Deductibles and co-pays?

15) Do you employ any household staff? If so, please detail.

16) How much did you donate to charity last year? What charity is the principal recipient of your donations?

Spots on the bill at party town committee meetings are in demand as the selection of delegates to conventions takes place later this month.  Monday night found two candidates for statewide office, Michael Fedele and Peter Schiff, at the East Windsor Republican Town Committee meeting.  The north central town, with about 1,400 registered Republicans, will in  two weeks select six delegates to the state convention.

Gubernatorial hopeful Fedele was up first and went on at considerable length about his background because, he said, the members might not know him very well.  This suggests Fedele has not used his position as lieutenant governor to create a bond with local party organizations in the way Jodi Rell did while she served John Rowland for nearly 10 years.

Listening to Fedele for a half hour at the Town Hall Annex in the Warehouse Point section of town, one would not have suspected Connecticut faces catastrophic budget problems.  Fedele barely mentioned them.  When he did, he proposed no credible, specific solutions to wrestling that monster.

When Fedele invited questions from the audience, Senate candidate Schiff raised his hand, acknowledged the state’s a mess, and asked Fedele what he’s been doing.  That question should be posed at every appearance Fedele makes.  He may eventually find a compelling answer, but he offered none last night.  The Stamford resident said that in September Rell should have vetoed that budget that became law without her signature.  ”I would have vetoed it,” he declared.  If so, he kept that to himself at the decisive hour 6 months ago.

Fedele rival Tom Foley spoke to the East Windsor Republicans two weeks ago and, I understand, made a better impression than Fedele.  The audience was capable of enthusiasm, as Schiff proved in the hour following Fedele’s departure from the room.

No candidate for governor, Republican or Democrat, should be allowed to make an appearance without being pressed on what he or she will do about the budget deficit.

This is only an impression from listening to and watching 25 people at a Monday night Republican town committee meeting:  Peter Schiff will win some of their delegates, Michael Fedele may not.

Republican United States Senate hopeful Peter Schiff got some good news today.  The winner of last Tuesday’s Hartford Courant/Fox CT debate has nerves jangling at the Rob Simmons campaign.  There’s no other reason for the Simmons campaign to launch a peculiar attack on Schiff and step on its own news that former Congresswoman Nancy Johnson is supporting her former colleague’s bid for the Senate.

Schiff, who through this long campaign has polled in single digits in the race for the nomination, must be generating some buzz, buzz, buzz among activists.  It’s easy for model of the moderate Republican establishment Simmons to pull a teabag out of his pocket; it’s harder for him to pocket the support of Tea Party enthusiasts.   Simmons, after all, voted for plenty of deficit spending and expanded entitlements during his three term in Washington.

The Simmons campaign emailed Schiff’s interview with the CTMirror and highlighted the financial commentator’s thoughyts about storing precious metals offshore as a hedge against the government’s confiscation of gold.  That must sound nutty to the Simmons campaign, but history tells us it happens.  In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt banned the private ownership of gold except for jewelry. The restriction wasn’t lifted until Gerald Ford became president more than 40 years later.  You can hold on to your Rolexes, Republicans.

The McMahon campaign has not attacked Schiff and probably sees no reason to start.

Schiff’s father also comes in for highlighting by the Simmons campaign.  Irwin Schiff, 78, is currently serving a long federal prison term for tax resistance.  Schiff says in the interview as much as a son decently can about his father, pointing out that he was like Captain Ahab in his belief that the federal government had no authority to levy the income tax.  I know little about Schiff’s relationship with his father, but I know children don’t pick their parents.  Parents don’t pick their children (except for those special ones who are adopted).  The relationships, in either or both directions, can be a burden.  Schiff, who was raised by his mother, wins full marks for handling his relationship in as dignified a manner as possible.  It can’t be easy to be Irwin Schiff’s son.

Rob Simmons probably was not delighted four years ago when his wife, Edith “Heidi” Simmons, donated $250 to anti-Iraq war poster boy Democrat Ned Lamont while her husband was struggling and failing to avoid becoming collateral damage of the war he vigorously backed.  Our family members do as they choose, and we read about it later on OpenSecrets.org or the police blotter.  It is among the glories and encumbrances of freedom.

For the Simmons campaign to pick today, as it showcases the endorsement of 12 term veteran turned Beltway lobbyist Johnson, who manifests warm memories among many Connecticut Republicans, to take a shot at Schiff over gold and his father is a mystery.  The battle against rival Linda McMahon is going so well that Simmons can also take on Schiff, who’s been mostly on the sidelines?  They must be detecting a shift to Schiff among undecided Republicans, which is cause for worry as Schiff is expected to start spending some campaign gold on the airwaves soon.

Weston investor and financial commentator Peter Schiff went into his dance at Tuesday night’s Republican Senate debate and showed he knows the moves Republican activists like to see in a candidate. The man can tap. He’s the Fred Astaire of the free market.

Another Fedele campaign endorsement in the Republican gubernatorial contest is raising questions.  Goshen First Selectmen Robert Valentine appeared on a February 4th list of Republican officials endorsing Tom Foley.  Valentine was also included in Lieutenant Governor Michael Fedele’s February 25th release of endorsers.  Which is it?

The Foley campaign sounds more confident it has Valentine’s support.  Justin Clark wrote in response to an email that the campaign verifies its endorsements and calls the notables on the list to tell them it’s about to be released.  Valentine, according to Clark, heard Foley speak at a Council of Small Towns forum at the beginning of the year and signed on.

Is he sure?  ”Yes. I am sure.”

The Fedele campaign, in response to the same question, said, Fedele “spoke to him  and believed he had his support.”  Valentine is out of state on vacation for two weeks and not available to clarify the confusion.  Fedele will speak to him when he returns.

Another anecdote and we’ll have a trend.  What was that about a Rell endorsement?

Sputtering Republican U.S. Senate aspirant Rob Simmons declared at Tuesday’s debate that a party reveals its character by the candidates it nominates.  Nominate me, he seemed to suggest, and you will wrap your party in my rectitude.  Rut-roh, good thing Simmons didn’t press the point beyond his non-sequitur.  There’s a plagiarism brouhaha brewing in Camp Simmons and it’s revealing more than sticky fingers on other people’s work.

Seems Simmons has been ballyhooing as his own a small business plan that is just like the one developed by National Federation of Independent Business.  The plan disappeared from the Simmons campaign website shortly after the AP made inquiries into the provenance of the Simmons plan.  All those meetings with state businesses while Simmons was Jodi Rell’s small business advocate appear not to have inspired sufficient original thoughts in the three term former congressman to devise his own plan.

As disappointing is Simmons passing off the blunder on a “young staffer who borrowed the words without attribution,”  according to his campaign manager, Jim Barnett.  A young staffer?  That’s who wrote lifted the Simmons plan to revive prosperity?

We know character when we see it, and it’s not on display at the Simmons campaign today.

After two mostly humorless debates, it’s time for a laugh.  Who better than 83 year old Don Rickles to provide it?  He’s interviewed in the current edition of Vanity Fair by John Heilpern.  The one-pager is funny throughout but here’s the payoff:

Before our lunch ended, I asked if he would tell the now classic story about Frank Sinatra that famously left Carson helpless with laughter.

“It’s a true story, so help me God,” he began obligingly. “Sinatra was headlining at the Sands, and I was with this girl having dinner in the lounge. She wasn’t anybody I would bring home to my mother, but I really wanted to score big. Frank was in the lounge at his table with Lena Horne and some other celebrities and all his security guards. And my date says, ‘My God, there’s Frank Sinatra! Do you know him?’

“I said, ‘Sure, he’s a friend of mine.’ Which he was. But I made it sound like my whole life. ‘We’re like brothers!’ She didn’t believe me. So I said, ‘Wait here, sweetheart,’ and I went over to Frank’s table. ‘What do you want, Bullethead?’ he said. That was his nickname for me. I told him I was trying to impress this girl and would he do me a very big favor and come over and just say hello. He said, ‘For you, Bullethead, I’ll do it.’”

Five minutes later, Sinatra strolled over and said, “Don, how the hell are you?”

And Don Rickles looked up and replied, “Not now, Frank. Can’t you see I’m with somebody?”

Makes you wish there were one more candidate running for the United States Senate.

That’s right, your heart, Republicans. You heard Peter Schiff and he said the things you’ve been thinking.  He had the most to gain in tonight’s Hartford Courant/Fox CT Republican Senate debate, and he made the most of his opportunity.

The investor and financial analysis was fluid and compelling in his concise answers, pushing every button of free market-loving Republicans. His insights on the economy, the size of the federal government and the danger of soaring deficits to national security will resonate beyond the night’s debate.

Schiff also some truths that will have had Republican heads nodding.  There are ways to reduce the cost of health care with less government, not more. He does have a way with an anecdote.  You know he’s right when he says that some of the same people who oppose Obama proposals would support them if they had come from George W. Bush.

Schiff provided a stark contrast to former Congressman Rob Simmons’s hymn to bipartisanship when he said he doesn’t want to end gridlock “of it’s the only thing that stands between us and bigger government.”  He was warbling a love song into Republican primary ears with that.  He moved into the second verse when he pointed out that years of compromises have produced the mess we’re in. He hit his crescendo when he declared, “if you send me to Washington, I promise you one thing, that town will never be the same again.”

If more delegates and primary voters see him, he’ll certainly shake up the Connecticut Republican party, as long as he keeps restraining himself from going into that aria about the government doing so much the constitution doesn’t permit.  Don’t get all Ron Paul.

Linda McMahon also had a good night.  She was crisp and mostly fluent.  Her closing statement allowed McMahon to tell her compelling rags-to-riches story without sounding too contrived.  (Oh, how candidates, all of them, torture themselves preparing their closer.)  She got off one of the laughs of the evening with her quip that if all else fails, she could put up a ring in the Senate and put her experience to work.

Full marks to McMahon for trilling the dreaded name Ahmadinejad without a stumble.  She was also the only one to give full-throated support of our alliance with Israel.

McMahon showed she stand alone and hold her own.  It was a good night for her, too.

Simmons provided some glimpses of himself as an establishment politician in an anti-establishment year.  He lobbed one at McMahon early on over TARP and she effectively shut him down at the first opportunity.  Simmons was confusing on why he doesn’t qualify for veterans medical benefits.  No mention that he gets better ones as a gold-plated retiree of the State of Connecticut.

Simmons paled compared to both Schiff and McMahon.  He was better than Blumenthal last night.  Simmons’s performance tonight will likely add to calls that he consider segueing from the Senate race into the contest for the 2nd district against Democrat Joe Courtney.

The second night of the U.S. Senate debates sponsored by The Hartford Courant and Fox CT begins at 7 p.m.  Brent Hardin hosts.

The hoo-ha at UHa offers Peter Schiff the best opportunity to make an impression on Republicans.  His experience as a commentator ought to allow him to dominate the proceedings.  He knows how to deliver bite-size opinions on the economy and foreign policy.  Schiff could inflict the most damage on former United Stated Representative Rob Simmons by highlighting the differences between Schiff’s outsider rhetoric and Simmons’s insider record.

WWE mogul Linda McMahon needs to show some depth and easy facility in the range of topics the debate will cover.  This may be the night when curious but skeptical Republicans see if she’s closely handled or merely surrounded by a lot of staffers.

The format does not allow for much give-and-take between the candidates.  That means Simmons may have some trouble engaging McMahon with the sort of attacks that have dominated his campaign against her.  He’ll do best if he keeps his answers crisp.  It might be a good night to acknowledge that he cast some votes as a member of Congress for 6 years that he now regrets.

Republicans across the country do a lot of mewling about the state of the nation.  The candidate who injects some optimism into his or her analysis of the way ahead will stand the best chance of winning supporters tonight for the May, August and November contests.