Friday March 27, 2009
Rob Simmons, the Stonington Republican and former three-term Second District congressman who has the inside track on the 2010 GOP nomination to go after U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, said today that he was aware of the incumbent’s weaknesses even before the recent Quinnipiac University Poll found Dodd’s dancing on thin ice.
Simmons, who called his 2006 loss to Joe Courtney “painful,” and the 83-vote margin was “tough,” said Republicans in Washington tipped him off to Dodd’s deteriorating popularity.
Simmons, on CPTV’s “On The Record,” airing tonight at 8:30, Sunday at 10 a.m. and Monday at 11:30 p.m., said that the national Republican Senate campaign gave him a look at an early poll
. The show’s host, Steve Kotchko, asked Simmons to comment on the Q Poll that showed Dodd’s approval in the weak 40-percent realm.
“I was stunned, but not specifically by that poll,” Simmons said.”We discovered the numbers were exactly the same” as the internal GOP poll.
Also appearing on “On The Record” this week is Susan Haigh of the Associated Press, and the Blogster.