Peter Schiff for Senate

Yesterday, I shook hands with a candidate for public office for whom I actually look forward to voting for. Usually, I don't so much vote for a candidate as I do vote against his opponents. Peter Schiff is running to become the Republican candidate for United States Senate from Connecticut. This is the seat for which Christopher Dodd decided not to run for reelection. Schiff and Dodd are nearly polar opposites. Dodd is a career politician, having served in the U.S. Senate since 1981 and before that the House of Representatives since 1975. His father was also a U.S. Senator. This is the first time Schiff has run for public office, and he credibly asserts that he doesn't want to be a politician, but no one else will step up to the plate to do the things that need to be done, and that it would not bother him at all if he served only one term. His father is in prison as a federal income tax protester. Schiff is a money manager, president of Euro Pacific Capital, and jokes that part of his job is to rat people out to the IRS, a chore that he does, but does not relish. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd pursued policies that cause the housing bubble and its subsequent collapse. Schiff had warned everyone who would listen that a housing bubble was developing and that the United States would have a severe recession. Instead of going into detail about Schiff''s policies, I refer the reader to YouTube, which is full of videos by and about Schiff and to his website, Schiff for Senate. For anyone familiar with Congressman Ron Paul, I would say a quick and dirty way of thinking of Schiff's policies is that he would take pretty much the same stand on any issue that Ron Paul would. His main message is that the debt the the government has accumulated is more than it will be able to pay and even with the current low level of interest rates that a serious crisis will arise when interest rates go up, as they inevitably must. For reasons of financial responsibility and Constitutional principles, he advocates a drastic reduction in the size of the federal government. Does Peter Schiff stand much of a chance? I doubt it. After all, this is Connecticut we are talking about here. However, Scott Brown surprised a lot of people by becoming a Republican Senator from Massachusetts. The most likely Democrat candidate for the position is Connecticut's present Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, who is leading all of his potential opponents in the polls by at least 20 points. I have donated money to Peter Schiff's campaign and have volunteered my services to help. Now that the weather has gotten much better, I am going to go outside to peal the “Dump Dodd” bumper sticker off my car and replace it with one that says “Schiff for Senate”. Then, I will put up the yard sign.