Okay, we now have another GOP Congressional incumbent linking himself positively to Barack Obama: Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, who has a new ad that declares flatly that he possesses "the hopefulness of Obama."...

By our count, this makes Shays, who's locked in a tough re-election fight against Dem Jim Himes, the second serious GOP down-ticketer to link himself positively with the Illinois Senator. GOP Senator Gordon Smith, who's also facing a bruising re-election battle, has run two ads hailing Obama.

The Shays campaign declined to comment on the ad, which was forwarded to us by a Connecticut source, but the Himes campaign confirms seeing it up on the air this morning.

Another fun thing about this ad is that Shays actually associates himself with both Obama and McCain, saying that he possesses "the hopefulness of Obama" and "the straight talk of McCain." Talk about fence sitting...

Late Update: The Shays campaign has confirmed to us that the ad is indeed running.

Depending on how this story works out, could there be zero New England Republicans in the House two years from now?

Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT) is the sole remaining Republican House member from New England, and even he barely survived the 2006 election. And now he's threatening to not run again — he's already a top Democratic target — if the House GOP leadership doesn't make him the head Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. If they do promise him the top spot but then renege in 2009, he says he'll resign.

"I'm 61 years old. I've been in Congress 20 years," Shays told the Hartford Courant. "If I have to fight to become chairman of a committee, given the job I've done, I need to move on."

Dem Diane Farrell has edged into a lead over GOP Rep. Chris Shays. Farrell leads Shays 51%-48% with 48% precincts reporting.

Connecticut's three Democratic House challengers received good news from state officials today when they reported that 82 thousand new voters have registered in the state since May, including more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans. About 31 thousand new Democrats, 12 thousand new GOPpers and 39 thousand new independents brought the total number of registered voters in Connecticut to a record 1.9 million. The AP quotes a UCONN professor of public policy who says the implications are “huge”: “I think the new registrants, given the Democratic advantage, can serve to put the Democrats over the top in any one of the races given how close they are."

Recent polling has each of the three Connecticut House races extremely close, with the Democrats having a slight edge in at least two of the three races going into the final week.

For days now there's been some buzz to the effect that national Dems are preparing to pump a huge amount of cash into the deadlocked contest between GOP Rep. Chris Shays and Dem challenger Diane Farrell. Well, the money's finally arrived: Yesterday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dropped $1,025,989.50 into the race for an ad buy targeting Shays going into this thrilling contest's final days.

This could tip the race. After backing GOP Rep. Chris Shays in the past, including against Dem Diane Farrell when she last challenged him in 2004, the New York Times is now throwing its support to Farrell. The paper says: "The Times has endorsed Mr. Shays in every race in which he has faced a serious opponent...Still, as his party has moved to the right, Mr. Shays has taken more and more stands with which we have profound disagreement...When Ms. Farrell first challenged Mr. Shays two years ago, The Times chose to endorse him as a rare voice for moderation...Now it is time to draw the line...With due respect for Mr. Shays’s service, we strongly endorse Diane Farrell for Congress."

Religious activists in Connecticut took their anti-torture message to the editorial pages of the Hartford Courant this morning. Rev. Kathleen McTigue and Rabbi Donna Berman, writing on behalf of the interfaith activist network “Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice,” argue in an OpEd that by voting for the Military Commissions Act, Senator Joe Lieberman and GOP Reps. Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons contributed to “undermining the moral values and legal traditions on which America was founded.”

Outlining the provisions and loopholes that allow for torture to continue, McTigue and Berman emphasize the need not to forget our collective moral standing because, while none of us may have individually tortured, kidnapped, or held others in secret, “our government has done all of these things in our names.” The group calls for voters to hold Lieberman, Shays, Johnson and Simmons “accountable for their lack of moral leadership on this issue” and concludes soberly: "Nothing less than the soul of our nation is at stake."

Election Central first reported on Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice when the group purchased a giant billboard to convey its message to drivers on the Connecticut interstate.

So it looks as if the combination of GOP Rep. Chris Shays' recent gaffes and antiwar Dem Diane Farrell's hard push on Iraq has turned this race into an absolute dead heat. A new poll just out this morning from the Hartford Courant shows the race deadlocked at 43% apiece. That's a two point gain for Farrell and a three point drop for Shays from a poll in early October which found Shays leading 46%-41%. A key footnote: "The new poll shows unaffiliated voters shifting toward Farrell," the Courant says. "In three weeks, she has erased a 16-point deficit to pull almost even with the moderate Shays in unaffiliated support, 38 percent to 39 percent."

More bad news for GOP Rep. Chris Shays: The Green Party candidate has pulled out of the race and thrown the Greens' support to Dem challenger Diane Farrell. The Stamford Advocate reports that a Green Party spokesperson explained the move by saying that the candidate wants it understood that his party is "not spoilers." In return, Farrell, who's negotiated with the Greens for weeks, agreed to push for Green participation in future debates. The Greens claim to deliver all of 1,300 votes -- less than half a perecent of the 2004 total -- but this race is so tight that those few could make a difference.

In their final debate last night, GOP Rep. Chris Shays and Dem challenger Diane Farrell found themselves in solid agreement: Both said they don't think the Republicans should be running the country anymore. Today's Hartford Courant reports:

"I don't think the Republican Party has earned the right to maintain the majority, nor do I think the Democrats have," Shays said.

Shays has in the past said that Bush “has no credibility” on Iraq. He's called on Donald Rumsfeld to resign. And he's said that the GOP leadership “has been so terribly wrong on so many policies." Every day, it seems, Shays comes closer and closer to complete agreement with Farrell.

A group of wealthy Wall Street-types is raising last minutes funds for threatened moderate Republicans like Chris Shays, Rob Simmons, Nancy Johnson, and Deborah Pryce. "Republicans Who Care," lead by executives from places like Goldman Sachs and Chase Manhattan, had raised $385,000 as of September 30th and plans to spend everything it can to help fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republicans hold their seats. The group was initially founded to counteract the effect of the anti-moderate Club for Growth and, as Ari Berman at the Nation points out, its name begs the question: "Does that mean that the rest of the Republicans are members of 'Republicans Who Don't Care'?"

GOP Rep. Chris Shays is gonna take plenty of heat for this one. At a debate this morning at the Stamford Marriott with antiwar Dem challenger Diane Farrell, Shays opined that we should have invaded Iraq "sooner" -- and not for WMDs. According to a transcript supplied by the Farrell campaign, Shays said:

Now let me just tell you something about the reality. We're there. And if we made mistakes we're still there. In my judgment we should have gone in sooner but not for weapons of mass destruction.

View Shays' remark below:

Shays didn't elaborate on this view. His remark came amid a long diatribe which included a scorching attack on Bush's handling of the war. View a fuller transcript after the jump.

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GOP Rep. Chris Shays has done it again. At a debate last night with Dem anti-war challenger Diane Farrell, Shays said:

Two political experts are claiming that GOP Rep. Chris Shays -- who's committed a series of eye-popping gaffes of late -- is cracking under the pressure of Dem Diane Farrell's tough challenge. The experts, Connecticut politics professors Gary Rose and John Orman, are quoted in an article in the Connecticut Post today speculating on the root causes of Shays' missteps. Rose: "The intensity of the campaign is starting to wear on him. It is a side of Congressman Shays that is new to the people of the district." Orman: "It is out of character for him, but maybe he felt Farrell is moving ahead and the pressure got to him for a moment." Shays' most recent misstep was to refer to what happened at Abu Ghraib as a "sex ring."

The "drive-by" media will get a kick out of this one. A group of religious activists has purchased a giant billboard on the interstate for a massive ad accusing four Connecticut incumbents of voting for torture. The Associated Press reports that the group, a self-described statewide group of religious leaders called Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, bought the space to target Senator Joe Lieberman and GOP Reps. Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons. While each candidate disputed the ad, the AP notes that all four voted for the controversial Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allows the President to "authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts." In other words, torture.

At Sunday night’s debate, Christopher Shays attempted to further distance himself from his earlier comments that the abuse at Abu Ghraib did not amount to torture but was more of a “sex ring.” When confronted by Dem challenger Diane Farrell on the issue, Shays relented. “It is abuse and it was a mistake to say it wasn’t. Did I make a mistake? Yes, I did. You got me, Diane. You did.”

GOP Rep. Chris Shays lashed out at his own party's national strategists today for sending out a flyer which accused his Dem opponent Diane Farrell of wanting to have "coffee talk with the Taliban." Shays posted a statement on his website slamming the flyer, which was sent out by the NRCC, as "outrageous" and as "garbage," saying that it was "an insult to the intelligence of the Fourth District." He added that the NRCC had "crossed the line." Shays' broadside against his party came a day after Election Central posted the flyer and called Shays' office to inquire whether he viewed the flyer's accusations as acceptable political rhetoric. His full statement after the jump.

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Responding to criticism of a NRCC mailer accusing opponent Diane Farrell of wanting to have "Coffee with the Taliban," embattled Republican Congressman Christopher Shays castigated his party's election committee and said it had "crossed the line." He called the ad "outrageous," "an insult to the intelligence of the Fourth District," and "garbage," and demanded the NRCC stop. Shays, who is in a tight race for reelection, has been under fire this week for calling Senator Ted Kennedy a "killer" and dismissing Abu Ghraib as just "a sex ring."

The full text of his statement is below the fold.

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Rep. Chris Shays has now clarified his Wednesday remarks about Abu Ghairb, in which Shays asserted that what happened at the notorious prison "wasn't torture" and was just a "sex ring." Shays acknowledged to the Associated Press today that what happened at the prison was in fact torture. But he offered a curious qualification, saying "it was torture because sex abuse is torture." He added that his earlier remarks had been prompted by photos of "naked Iraqis, naked Americans, Americans having sex." It was unclear from his comments which disturbed Shays more -- the images of abuse or the images of sex.

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Check out this new mailing sent out by the NRCC. It accuses Diane Farrell, the Dem challenger to GOP Rep Chris Shays, of wanting to have a "Coffee Talk with the Taliban":

To back up this charge, the flyer says simply that Farrell's candidacy "is endorsed by an organization with a leader who wanted someone to sit down and have a talk with the Taliban." The group isn't named. But NRCC spokesman Ed Patru tells Election Central that the organization in question is the Council for a Livable World, a moderate think tank previously cited in GOP advertising.

No further evidence beyond the unnamed leader of the Council who supposedly advocated talks with the Taliban was offered to support the belief that Farrell herself believes anything like this. The full mailing after the jump.

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GOP Rep. Christopher Shays said that what happened at Abu Gharib "wasn't torture"; it was merely a "sex ring." Today's Stamford Advocate reports that Shays made the comment during a debate Wednesday night with Dem challenger Diane Farrell. Here's what Shays told the audience: "Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture. It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from [Maryland] who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked." Farrell responded to the paper: "For Chris to say it was a sex ring is to minimize what happened. Chris knows it was certainly more than a sex ring." Update: Here's the video.

GOP Rep Chris Shays is calling Dem Senator Ted Kennedy a killer. Today's Hartford Courant reports that Shays lashed out at Kennedy while defending Speaker Dennis Hastert's handling of Foleygate. Kennedy campaigned for Shays' Dem foe Diane Farrell last week. Shays, referring to Kennedy's 1969 car accident, said: "I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day. Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody." (Emphasis added.) Farrell's response: "This is symptomatic of Chris losing his composure in a tight race."

Diane Farrell, the Dem challenger to imperiled GOP incumbent Rep Chris Shays, would like Connecticut voters to ask themselves three simple questions about Shays:

"When Chris agrees with the administration, has it been good for our country?"

"When Chris disagrees [as on stem cell research], has it made a difference?"

"Can we afford two more years of this administration?"

Tough questions. They were articulated by Farrell on Wednesday night, at the end of the first of 11 debates set to take place between the two candidates. More about that debate here.