Anti-FIC Mailer Backfires, Helps Elect Art Linares to State Senate
November 20th, 2012 by Peter
Much is being made this week, and rightly so, of the remarkable rise of young Art Linares to the State Senate. If, as CT GOP chair Jerry Labriola has asserted, Latino voters and the GOP are closely aligned on social issues, it may be that Art Linares does indeed represent an “emerging Latino political wave.”
If which case, we want to thank Connecticut’s anti-family movement for promoting FIC PAC’s endorsement of Art Linares and inadvertently helping to elect him to the State Senate! The item below was mailed to voters in Linares’ district. Linares won and will be the only new Republican in the next State Senate.
And for the record: 1) FIC didn’t “deny” anything to rape victims, we asked that Catholic hospitals not be forced to provide potential abortifacients. 2) We didn’t ask employers to deny anything in their health plans, we asked that the government not force religious believers and institutions to provide abortion-inducing drugs, which they never had to until 2012. 3) We didn’t ask employers to discriminate on sexual orientation (something outlawed in CT since 1991) we asked that the gender IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION (not orientation) bill not allow men in women’s bathrooms. 4) We don’t oppose marriage equality, we oppose same-sex “marriage.” Our opposition’s “Connecticut values” apparently include lying.
But it is good, in the midst of an otherwise difficult election year, to be able to point to one race where lies did not work. Here’s the other side of that mailer:
Seriously, “give us all pause”? How much did Linares’ opponents spend on this glossy anti-FIC mailer? They couldn’t hire a better copy writer?
As much as FIC should think that their material was the key to Linares winning, let’s keep in mind that both the New London Day and the Norwich Hour endorsed Green Party candidate Melissa Schlag, and uniformly panned Mr. Linares as inexperienced and out of his league in running for senate.
But our winner-take-all voting system allowed him to win in a 3-way race, when conservative ideas in this district clearly lack majority support. This is a progressive district, and Mr. Linares and his supporters should understand his win in a 3-way race does not validate his or any brand of conservativism, but merely reflect the fact that our voting system is unable to articulate the wishes of voters when more than two inputs are placed on it.
A higher percentage of voters in this district want liberal representation, and if Mr. Linares faces a two-way race in 2014, or a stronger third party campaign in 2014, then he is a one-termer. Good luck to him anyways, and I hope he supports election reform that allows his district to have the representation it really voted for.
Any other interpretation is partisan hogwash, since Mr. Linares’ victory is fall-out from an outdated binary electoral system that cannot incorporate a third point of view.
Regards,
KJK
Kenneth J. Krayeske
We heard from many people in Art’s district who were delighted to receive the anti-FIC mailer and said they would vote for Art because of it. They may have provided him the margin of victory over his closest opponent, the Democrat.
Do the results of the three-way race validate your claim that most voters in Art’s district want a liberal State Senator? As you say, we can put that theory to the test in 2014…when President Obama is no longer on the ticket.
Republican Linares won during an Obama LANDSLIDE… That’s truly saying something…
It’s frustrating to hear people claiming Linares victory was based off Schlag’s success. It seems people always have an excuse for every Republican victory. Perhaps Art simply worked harder then all three Candidates. Perhaps the Democrat ran a 15 day campaign when Art ran an 8 month campaign. If the Democrats want any shot at winning this seat back they better be prepared to go up against Arts Campaign and they better be ready to knock on doors in the middle of a 100 degree August day, not just rely on pathetic mail pieces like the one above to try to knock him off his game. No longer can the Democrats simply run off the democratic name in the 33rd. From the start the Democrats begin with 6,000 more registered voters then the republicans in the 33rd. Shlag put up 4317 total votes, she probably took about 1200 republican votes from Linares. Art won by nearly 3,000 votes against his democratic opponent, with or without Shlag Art would have still won a well-deserved fight being that he was able to get so many Dems to jump across the ballot. Congrats to Art, as a spectator I have never seen a Campaign like yours.
This ad shows the way the Left conducts itself. They automatically make the assumption that you are against women and gays.
The right to practice religion is guaranteed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Congress shall make no law…respecting an establishment of a religion nor the free exercise thereof.
The CT Constitution has a similar protection in Section 3.
“The exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination, shall forever be free to all persons in the state”
With these clearly defined rights, Catholics believe that giving Plan B can terminate a pregnancy, which they find morally wrong. How she got pregnant is irrelevant.
As for the birth control, anyone is free to buy their own. Again, people find it morally wrong to use birth control. Forcing a company to subsidize birth control violates the religious rights of the owners.
As for sexual orientation and the workplace. The bill at hand is the transgender bathroom bill. The Democrats passed a bill that allows men to dress as women and use a woman’s bathroom. This kind of behavior is still considered a mental illness. Business owners must have the right to hire and fire whom they please. It is their business, not the state’s.
The marriage equality argument is a farce. Supporting marriage between one man and one woman has nothing to do with homosexuals. But then again, the Left has to make victims out of everyone.
Art Linares won because he had the most votes. Who knows what would have happened if it were two people running. The people who voted Green Party may have simply not voted. There are plenty of people in the 5th Congressional who are conservative leaning and refused to vote for either Roraback or Esty.
The mailer was filled with garbage typical of the misrepresentations and lies put out by the Left.
KJK, if you are going to blame the system you should at least understand why it exists the way it does in the first place. Linares won the election because he got the most votes, it is pretty simple. The system is not outdated, in fact it works just as the founders designed it to work. We build our governing coalitions BEFORE the election in the form of nominating processes where all sides get to compete and provide input so that on election day you ideally have two candidates that are ready to represent their unified constituencies. When they get sworn in they are not busy cutting coalition deals when they should be governing. It leads to a more stable government. One need only look to other countries where governing coalitions are formed after the elections to see the kind of chaos we avoid.
I don’t see any support for your conclusion that the fliers backfired or that FIC’s support had anything to do with Art winning. A few points:
1. More people voted against Art than for him, suggesting that whatever his views are on social issues are not in line with the majority.
2. A majority of the people in his district also voted for Obama and Murphy, who hold opposite social views from Art. This further suggests that Art’s socially conservative views are not in line with his district and that people voted for him despite such views.
3. Art did not publicize his socially conservative views and his position on marriage was no where to be found on his campaign materials or on his website. It is likely that those voting for him did not even know what his views on such issues were, if not for the anti-Art fliers.
4. Polls during this past election cycle consistently showed that economic issues, not social issues were the main issues for voters. Issues like same sex marriage barely registered for most voters, and for those with strong opinions against it were likely already voted GOP.
5. The entire post above is complete conjecture and has no factual or evidential basis for any of the claims made.
DR, see comment # 2, above.