Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D), the most popular Democratic politician in the state, who has been serving as state attorney general since he was first elected in 1990, has long made no secret of his desire to run for the United States Senate, the only job that has interested him besides his current job. Every four years, speculation builds that he'll run for Governor of Connecticut, and every four years he declines to run, as he has done so once again. Instead, he has decided to run for a sixth term as attorney general. But The Hill reports that Blumenthal, long-stymied by having both Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman in front of him in the state pecking order as Democrats in the Senate, is now preparing to run against Lieberman in 2012, seeing as Lieberman no longer is a Democrat.
Link to article
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced Monday he will seek a sixth term, is mulling a challenge against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in 2012.
Multiple Connecticut Democrats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Blumenthal has begun informing influential members of the state's political class that he will prepare for a run against Lieberman.
This is big news, folks. If Blumenthal ultimately decides to run against Lieberman, it could do one of two things - it could either scare Lieberman into retirement, or it could sentence him to a brutal election loss. Lieberman's favorables stand at 38% favorable, 54% unfavorable. With a strong Democrat in the race, we are nearly assured of sending Lieberman home.
From Blumenthal's Wikipedia article:
Blumenthal graduated with honors from Harvard College (Phi Beta Kappa; Magna Cum Laude) and Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal.
Blumenthal had a brief career as a newspaper reporter for The Washington Post. He was hired by Benjamin C. Bradlee, editor of the Post, and worked on the Metro desk.
He served as United States Attorney for Connecticut from 1977 to 1981 and as the chief federal prosecutor of that state successfully prosecuted many major cases against drug traffickers, organized crime, white collar criminals, civil rights violators, consumer frauds, and environmental polluters. Attorney General Blumenthal also served as administrative assistant to United States Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff, as aide to United States Senator Daniel P. Moynihan when Moynihan was Assistant to President Richard Nixon, and as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. From 1981 to 1986, he was a volunteer counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Before he became Attorney General, Blumenthal was a member of the Connecticut state Senate from 1987-90 and the state House from 1984-87. He was first elected as the 23rd Attorney General in 1990 and was re-elected in 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006. On October 10, 2002 he was awarded the Raymond E. Baldwin Award for Public Service by the Quinnipiac University School of Law.
In my opinion, Blumenthal is the best recruit we could get to run against Lieberman. The only thing we really have to worry about is if Chris Dodd runs again in 2010. If he does, we're all set. If he doesn't, Blumenthal would presumably jump in to succeed Dodd, and we have to start looking again.