Windsor's Hill Makes the Case that He's the Only Qualified Senate Candidate

With the first two debates in the race for Sen. Joe Lieberman's soon-to-be-vacated seat having taken place over the past few days, Republican candidates have been on local television networks and in headlines of newspapers across the state.

As expected, Linda McMahon and Chris Shays were at the heart of most post-debate conversations, being the biggest names and the biggest wallet (McMahon spent $50 million of her own cash in an unsuccessful 2010 bid for a seat in the Senate) in the race.

However, Windsor's Brian K. Hill doesn't believe money or recognition equal electability. In fact, Hill argues that neither Shays nor McMahon are electable, and, based on credentials alone, he says he's the best candidate for the job.

"If you compare résumés, if you compare experience, I am much better qualified than either one of those candidates," says Hill, who owns a general practice law firm in downtown Hartford.

"I am the only candidate that has government experience, military experience and business experience ... I am the only one that knows anything about national security and foreign policy."

In particular, it was Hill's days as a Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps officer that are responsible for his exposure to government dealings and his run for federal office.

"It was those days as a JAG officer seeing all your money go out the window and flushed down the toilet," Hill says of his motivation to run for office.

"[Government employees] treat money as if it's free money, but it's taxpayers' money, and you have to guard the government fisc zealously."

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Hill doesn't just believe in handling taxpayers' money with care, it's something he has experience doing.

The Windsor High graduate has done his share of looking after public funds, he says, during his years as the officer charged with choosing whether or not to approve department spending in the United States Army.

As a JAG attorney dealing with federal contract law "you see a lot of the waste in government contracting up close and personal," he explains.

"Essentially, command couldn't buy toilet paper or a weapons system without me signing off on it. I saw everything that was being purchased, and I made sure, not only that they were complying with federal law, but I made sure they were spending the taxpayers' money wisely."

Spending is just the beginning of many changes Hill would like to see made in the way things are done in D.C.

"I probably would be the first Senator in history [who] would make it my mission to repeal laws; not to pass more laws, but to repeal laws that are on the books and aren't doing anybody any good," says Hill, adding that too much government regulation is a burden to those with the ability to create jobs and a financial burden to school systems forced to comply with federal regulations.

Government regulation is necessary, he states, but it must be done correctly and only to a certain extent.

"You have to have government regulation. I'm opposed to over-regulation," he explains. "We need to consolidate agencies that ... have overlapping responsibilities. We don't need anymore government programs.

"We've got a war on poverty; we've still got poor people. We had a war on drugs, and the drug problem is worse than when we started. We've got a current war on terror, which is eroding civil liberties and civil rights."

Hill's list of national and state issues needing to be addressed is lengthy (it includes improving national security, which Hill believes must include "beefing up our cyber defense" to combat electronic warfare), but it starts, he says, with Republicans making the right choice at their convention and in November.

The current problem, Hill states, is two-fold: local media is biased in favor of certain candidates, particularly one (McMahon) who shells out a great deal of cash to Republican Town Committees and television stations for advertising; and the candidate local media favors cannot win the election.

"They want the candidate with the most money, for whichever party, to do the media buys," Hill says, referring to advertising dollars paid to media outlets.

"It's my opinion that the media here in the state of Connecticut want Linda McMahon to be the candidate for the Republican Party. Why is that? She's the perfect Republican candidate — she's got a lot of money to spend, and she's not electable."

Moreover, Hill says, it's time for Connecticut republicans to change their course of action.

"Republicans have made the mistake over the last ten years of nominating candidates who (are)... either a career politician with the name recognition, or a self-funded candidate.

"We've lost consistently in state-wide elections. So we have to do things a little bit differently."

According to Hill, in order for Republicans to win in November, they must buck the trend of backing wealthy and well-known candidates and strive to win votes in Connecticut's cities.

"It is mathematically impossible for a Republican candidate to win a state-wide election (in Connecticut) unless we get votes from conservative Democrats and those non-affiliated voters."

"The demographics of this state have changed over the last 10 to 15 years, but the Republican Party has not," Hill says "And [the Republican Party is] suffering as a result of not adapting to the changing circumstances.

"Republicans have just not done enough outreach. I think if we were to go into the cities, if we were to go into the senior centers, if we were to go into the minority communities, if we were to go to the unions and present our message, I think our message would be received favorably. I believe that because that's been my experience. It's been received favorably."