Ann Brickley, the Republican candidate in Connecticut’s first congressional district, is electrifying the conservative blogosphere with news that she is behind Congressman John Larson by only seven points in a recent poll.
“We’ve been saying for quite some time that the seat is competitive,” Brickley tells Battle ’10. So competitive, in fact, that Larson has actually been campaigning. “He was at the Cromwell River Fest; they said he’s never attended that event as a matter of fact,” says Brickley.
If elected, Brickley’s priority would be to “stop all this wasteful spending.” She thinks that the GOP’s “Pledge to America” is a “really good first step” toward this goal but that it needs to go further: “We need an end to earmarks. I think there ought to be term limits too.”
Still, she agrees with the pledge’s take on health care. Brickley would vote to repeal Obamacare and to implement tort reform. She also would allow people to buy insurance across state lines and would lift mandates on insurance companies, which she says raises premiums.
Her plan shares some similarities with Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” though Brickely says she agrees only with some aspects of it. “I’m not so sure I would go anywhere near privatizing Social Security but there are some pieces of that I agree with and other pieces that I would want to study a little bit more,” she says.
Lest conservatives get prematurely euphoric, Brickley is still behind by seven points — and Larson is still over 50 percent. To close the gap, she plans to continue a direct-mail campaign and radio spots. “We’re also filming a TV ad but we haven’t made a decision based on the cost of that,” Brickley adds. “If the results based on the poll help us make more money, we’ll be airing an ad.”
Today’s results suggest Brickley is more competitive than she was once thought. They may also help her become more so as November approaches.