Well, I started thinking about ways the Connecticut Democratic Party can get Ted Kennedy, Jr., into politics without potentially screwing over Rep. Chris Murphy of CT-05, the bold young soul in a bid for the Senate seat held by retiring independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman. And I thought, “Well, what about starting him off with a nice House seat?” And that evolved into wondering about exactly how to negate the fact that CT-05 represents a pickup opportunity for the Republicans, provided they field a good candidate, now that Murphy is moving on to (hopefully) bigger and better things.
I came up with this map.
What I’ve done here is I’ve basically cracked the existing CT-05, giving pieces of it to CT-01 (pink), CT-04 (red), and the new south-central-based incarnation of CT-05 (blue). I can’t guarantee Rep. Jim Himes in CT-04 is going to be thrilled, considering he had a closer-than-expected reelection campaign against Dan Debicella (drawn into Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s CT-03 [purple] on this map); Rep. John Larson in CT-01 should be fine, considering the sizable Democratic tilt of Hartford. I think Democrats will have to concede one district as “fair fight” and hope the state’s strong Democratic proclivities and a mediocre Republican bench are enough to keep it in friendly hands, and I think they’d rather trust an incumbent member of Congress to hold it down rather than the likes of First Selectman Mary Glassman, whose ticket didn’t even come close to prevailing in the Democratic gubernatorial primary last year. Having two close districts, as they did last year, is a bit uncomfortable when the Republicans remain capable of winning statewide at least on the state government level.
I’m not too knowledgeable about Connecticut politics in particular. My idea here is that by drawing CT-03 a bit west, CT-04 a bit north, CT-01 over into the northwestern corner of the state (making it much more compact in the process), and CT-02 more into the north-central than the south-central part of the state, I could create a new, open-seat CT-05 without jeopardizing the Democrats’ control of the congressional delegation. This CT-05 is specifically drawn for Kennedy, who lives in Branford (just east of the new boundary with CT-03, in the vicinity of New Haven). With a seat tailor-made for his political debut, Kennedy might be less tempted to upset the apple cart by making a damn-the-torpedoes run at the Democratic nomination-a scenario the Democratic establishment in Connecticut and the DSCC would surely like to avoid.