I have read with amusement the various stories folks have shared this week regarding changes in Republican Congressmen's web sites further obscuring their affiliation with the Republican Party and the Bush/Cheney Administration. For fun, I thought I'd try to do a review of as many incumbent Republican Congressmen's sites as I could, to see if this was indeed a trend this year, and who, if any, would be honest in their support for the Republican Leadership and the Bush White House .
P.S. Please forgive my lack of formatting. I am still trying to learn <g>
This endeavor could take a while, and I may very well lose steam/interest before I get very far, but I thought I'd share what I found about Connecticut's three Republican incumbents' (Rob Simmons, Chris Shays, and Nancy Johnson) websites this year.
Guess what? Apparently ALL THREE are running as "Independent Republicans" this year!
I visited each site to answer just a couple of simple questions:
1) Does the site identify the Congressman is a Republican on his/her Home Page?
2) Does the site make any mention of their Republican President George Bush or VP Dick Cheney?
All the case of all 3 Republican Congressional incumbents in Connecticut, the answer was indeed a BIG FAT NO!!! to both questions. (Simmons does proudly display a picture of himself with John McCain, as if he were indeed the current leader of the country!)
Supporting the broadly-held contention that they are running as "Independent Republicans", along with our boy Joe the "Independent Democrat", take a look at these money quotes which I found by venturing deeper into the site:
Congressman Simmons' site tells us:
"Rob Simmons is widely recognized as one of the most independent Republicans in the entire U.S. House..."
Coincidentally, so does Congresswoman Johnson's:
"Nancy Johnson is widely recognized as one of the most independent Republicans in the entire U.S. House -- "
Isn't that a hoot? You think the same guy wrote the text for both of their websites? And finally, good Congressman Shays:
"As a moderate Republican, he has grown into national leadership, and along the way has provided an independent and effective voice..."
I'd appreciate it if anyone has any statistics to add regarding how often these three exercise their independence when voting in Congress to include those in the comments, but my educated guess is that the data won't back it up.
There must be a few true Republicans running for re-election that stand tall and proud with their leader. I'll keep looking for them.
http://www.simmonsforcongress.com/
http://www.shaysforcongress.org/
http://www.johnsonforcongress.com/