GOP uses base closure as a scare tactic

I'm not sure what was more unseemly about the Republicans' press conference Thursday, called to reassure voters they are ready to save the Submarine Base: the fact they had the event at all or that they invoked a patriotic spirit of bipartisanship.

The event, of course, was excruciatingly partisan.

The Republicans, led by gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley, gathered at an overlook at the USS Nautilus Museum in Groton to wring their hands over some vague notion that has been fanned to life lately that the Submarine Base might end up in the base closure ringer again.

"I'm going to ask the congressional delegation to put partisan politics aside and work for what's right for Connecticut," said Foley, surrounded by prominent southeastern Connecticut Republicans at a decidedly partisan event.

Shame on all of them for trying to scare people.

The Submarine Base was spared the base closure ax five years ago, after Connecticut's political and military establishment rallied heroically, and yes, without partisan politics, to wage a successful campaign before the 2005 Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission.

There is nothing in place now - beyond vague and routine Washington posturing about defense savings - to indicate in any way that the submarine base is in the kind of peril it was in 2005.

The Republicans did not point to one single fact Thursday that indicates the base here is any immediate peril.

And yet Rob Simmons, who represented southeastern Connecticut in Congress when the base was indeed on a closure list, took the microphone Thursday to sound the false alarm.

Foley moments before had announced he was appointing Simmons to head up a committee to advise him on how to head off a closing.

"It may be coming down the road again, or should I say up the river," Simmons joked.

In fact, the prospects of a Russian missile landing on the base are about as serious a threat as a base closure. Aren't there more important issues and problems for candidates to worry about and campaign on in 2010?

Simmons stood shoulder to shoulder Thursday with the Republican candidate for his old congressional seat, former TV anchor Janet Peckinpaugh.

Peckinpaugh has been busy campaigning on the phantom base closure.

"Joe Courtney May Cost Eastern Connecticut the Sub Base," a headline from a Peckinpaugh for Congress press release screamed Wednesday.

Really?

I would put my money on U.S. Rep. Courtney to best help save the base, if that day should come. After all, U.S. spending on submarine production has increased dramatically since he replaced Simmons in Congress.

That is probably why executives at Electric Boat have enthusiastically bundled their political contributions to assist Courtney. That's where their money is going.

Janet Peckinpaugh, after all, said in a television interview not long ago that she couldn't remember who she voted for in 2008 in the 2nd District. So it's possible, she, too, chose Courtney over Sean Sullivan, the former submarine base commander who ran against him.

Someone from Courtney's office took the occasion of Thursday's strange GOP press conference to share a taped phone call Simmons made back in 2005 to then-candidate Courtney. The call was made in the wake of the BRAC decision to keep the base open, and Simmons thanked his adversary for keeping the fight to save the base nonpartisan.

Of course, that was then.

And the base, at that time, was really in peril.

This is the opinion of David Collins.