Political Capitol

Having never run a political campaign I’m not one to judge what candidates should or shouldn’t consider when they conduct a poll.

But it struck me as funny that Republican Rob Russo, who is running for the Fairfield County Congressional seat held for years by his former boss, Republican Chris Shays, would commission an internal poll gauging how Shays would fare were he to decide he wanted his old job back.

In recent weeks Shays has been making it clear that he is considering getting back into the political game, most likely as a gubernatorial candidate. He even made a point of showing up at the state capitol last Wednesday, along with several already declared gubernatorial contenders, to hear what retiring Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell had to say in her final state-of-the-state speech.

During a recent phone conversation Shays, while indicating he is less-interested in running for Congress, was pretty critical of Himes, so he’s been paying attention to what his replacement is doing.

And the Washington Post’s The Fix blog Wednesday reported that Shays’ has not ruled out a Congressional run, according to unidentified sources “familiar with his thinking.”

Which leads me back to Russo’s poll. According to Russo, the data showed Shays would now defeat Himes, 51.67 percent of the vote to 33.33 percent. The polling company – Western Wats of Utah – randomly phoned 300 residents in Fairfield County.

Russo, in contrast, would garner 30 percent of the vote to Himes’ 43 percent.

I asked Russo if he was worried the positive numbers for Shays might lure the former Congressman into the race.

“Chris has shown no interest in running again,” Russo said. “It’s never really occurred to me he would consider running for his own seat.”

Russo, a former Shays staffer and close friend and advisor who mentions Shays on the stump, said for those reasons it made sense to include his ex-boss in the poll.

“Because I’m so closely identified with Chris I wanted to know where the district stood in regards to him,” Shays said. “It’s pretty clear there’s a bit of buyer’s remorse when it comes to Jim Himes.”

Russo, who polled a couple of points better than another potential front runner for the GOP nomination – state Sen. Dan Debicella, R-Shelton -  believes the distance between himself and Himes will close rapidly as he gets his name out there.

Or he could just do his best to actually become Chris Shays and, apparently, seal the deal now and take the next eight months off.

And then there’s always the possibility this was done to help Shays, who has yet to officially form any sort of exploratory committee that could conduct polling, do some number-crunching to see if voters want him back, either as Governor or Congressman.

UPDATE: Just got off of the phone with Debicella, who said he has not and has no plans to include Shays in any of his polls.

Why does he think Russo did it?

“That is a good question. That I don’t know,” Debicella said. “Maybe it’s to show someone with name recognition could beat Jim Himes.”

Debicella doesn’t buy that Russo did it for Shays if the latter is planning to run for Governor. He said if that is the case Shays needs to be concerned about the opinion of the entire state, not just his old Congressional district.

Debicella said he is heartened by Russo’s poll results, arguing if you consider the margin-of-error they are running about neck-and-neck (even though the two would both lose to Himes at this point).