Chris Shays Nominated By Longtime Friend John McKinney

HARTFORD – Over the past decade, one of Chris Shays’s closest political friends has been John McKinney.

The current Senate Republican leader in Hartford, McKinney has been close with Shays as a moderate Republican from Fairfield County. Shays first won the Congressional seat in the Fourth District in August 1987, replacing McKinney’s father, Stewart, who had died earlier that year.

Through a series of elections, McKinney seemed to show up at virtually every debate and fundraiser for the Shays campaign. When Shays was clashing against Democratic upstart Diane Farrell of Westport in two election cycles in 2004 and 2006, McKinney was a constant presence on the campaign and fundraising trail.

On Friday night, McKinney returned once again to help his friend of 25 years.

“I want my country back,” McKinney told delegates at the state party convention in the cavernous convention center in Hartford.

“No one worked harder than Chris Shays,” McKinney said. “Fact: Chris Shays helped draft the Republican Contract with America.”

Based on Shays’s budget credentials, Speaker Newt Gingrich boosted him on the budget committee.

“Chris Shays has proven he can balance the federal budget. He is a winner and a fighter and a proven vote-getter,” McKinney said. “Chris has always beaten the odds. … When Chris first ran for Congress, he finished last. Dead last [before running in the 1987 five-way Republican primary]. You know what? He won.”

To second the nomination of Shays, former state party chairman Robert S.Poliner screamed into the microphone that President Obama must lose in 2012. Some delegates turned their heads because Poliner was so loud.

“I know Christopher Shays. He is a man of unquestioned principles and integrity,” Poliner said, recalling Shays’s clash against “a corrupt Hartford probate judge” who was eventually impeached.

Poliner boomed, ”We must win! There is no other option!”

In an apparent reference to McMahon, Poliner said that Connecticut residents should not “throw away their own votes or their own money.”

Once the voting began, the split in the Greenwich delegation was emblematic  of the split between Shays and former wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon of Greenwich.

Traditionally, Greenwich Republicans rallied strongly around Shays and provided huge margins of victory in his Congressional races. They also poured huge amounts of money into his campaign coffers.

On Friday night, 14 of the 22 Greenwich delegates voted for McMahon, while 7 voted for Shays. One delegate voted for Brian K. Hill. State Rep. Fred Camillo, former Greenwich GOP chairman Ed Dadakis and state Rep. Lile Gibbons are all supporting Shays, while Rep. Livvy Floren and First Selectman Peter Tesei are both backing McMahon.

In Simsbury, the party was split down the middle with four votes for Shays, four for McMahon and one for attorney Peter Lumaj.

The statewide party is clearly split in many ways. Republicans have traditionally rallied around a single candidate, but the votes – and the delegates – have been all over the place this year. Mayor Mark Boughton is supporting McMahon, as is state Rep. Bill Wadsworth of Farmington, Rep. Selim Noujaim of Waterbury, and two of the most conservative state senators in Hartford – Sen. Joe Markley of Southington and Sen. Len Suzio of Meriden. In Litchfield, all five delegates were for McMahon, and all six in New Britain were for McMahon.

As the night went on, McMahon’s lead continued increasing – jumping to 58 percent to 31 percent by 9:45 p.m. Shays was huddling with his supporters near the East Lyme delegation, getting the latest details.

After Poliner’s speech, the Shays campaign ran a video that said that Shays was the only candidate who could defeat Democratic frontrunner Chris Murphy in the 2012 race because the independent Quinnipiac University poll showed a dead heat between Shays and Murphy.

“She lost by 12 points last time. She didn’t even come close,” political pundit Dick Morris said of McMahon in the Shays campaign video.

“I’ve balanced the budget. I’ve passed welfare reform,” Shays says in the video. “I know how to cut taxes because I’ve done it.”

The evening also included nominating speeches for three attorneys who are lesser-known candidates, Brian K. Hill, Kie Westby and Peter Lumaj.

As a major in the U.S. Marines, Westby volunteered for Desert Storm in 1991. Today, he runs a law firm and has gained some name recognition with his statewide run. Westby’s nomination was seconded by a Tea Party conservative – even as many of the delegates were already pledged to the two frontrunners, McMahon and Shays.

In his video, Westby said that both Connecticut, the Republican Party, and the United States of America are all at a crossroads.

By 9 p.m. Friday, no votes had been cast for the U.S. Senate in an all-day marathon for the delegates that started with breakfast in Hartford.

The balloting started well for Shays at 9:16 p.m. in his hometown of Bridgeport with five votes for Shays and one for McMahon.

In his video, Lumaj said, “Unless ordinary citizens get involved, socialism is coming to America.”

In unofficial tallies at 11 p.m. Friday, McMahon had 61 percent, compared to 32 percent for Shays. Hill was in third place at 5 percent, while Lumaj was in fourth place at 1 percent. Westby had 4 delegate votes, which effectively translated into nearly 0 percent.