How thrilling is our Senate race?

William, we hardly knew ye. In fact, all we really got to know about the departed Democratic Senate candidate, State Rep. William Tong (D-147), was his oft repeated tale about his father’s arrival in the United States with 57 cents in his pocket, and how his hard work at Chinese restaurants enabled him to send son William to a fancy prep school and the Ivy League.It was a good story but it was told so often, it overwhelmed anything the candidate might have put forth on why he, rather than his better known opponents, should be the Democratic candidate for senator. Tong’s father, a spry looking gentleman, probably no older than John McCain, was in the audience for his son’s withdrawal announcement, leading one to wonder if maybe he should have been the candidate.Note to candidates: Repeating stories about your humble roots took a bad turn with John Edwards and his never ending reminder that he was the son of a mill worker. It turns out he’ll be remembered for more dramatic things and I’m not talking about having been John Kerry’s vice president.Nobody really cares about who a candidate’s father was. If voters cared, they never would have elected Joe Kennedy’s boy John. This goes for Linda McMahon, the wealthy wrestling mogul, who is already running a commercial depicting her poverty stricken roots on Tobacco Road, and Chris Murphy, who boasts his mother grew up in a New Britain housing project although he grew up in a wealthy suburb. Admittedly, there is merit in Mr. Tong’s American story but there would have been more to his campaign if he had let us know why this unknown was preferable to run-of-the-mill Democratic waiters of their turn like Chris Murphy and Susan Bysiewicz, his principal opponents.Tong was onto something when he criticized Murphy for his support of financial industry-friendly loopholes in legislation aimed at reforming the Wall Street excesses that so damaged the economy but he never pressed the issue. Bysiewicz has been tougher on Wall Street than Murphy, who has received around $250,000 from the securities and investment industries and at least as much from the lawyers, lobbyists and others allied with them. That’s a large chunk of his support to date.Otherwise, as George Wallace liked to say about his fellow Democrats, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them.In their debates, as the Connecticut Mirror (www.ctmirror.org) pointed out after one of them last month, the two and Tong espoused remarkably similar, Democratic talking point-positions on:The need for quick troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is happening, but what about building the nation until 2024;Preserving any portions of President Obama’s health-care reform that may be struck down by the Supreme Court before we know what these provisions are and why they are being struck down;Promoting renewable energy sources to reduce dependence on foreign and domestically produced oil, a truly courageous stand;Maintaining low interest loans for college students, loved by Obama and Romney;Ensuring that more affordable refinancing options are available for Americans with steep mortgage payments, without saying what they are.The Mirror pointed out they did vary somewhat in their positions on jobs but there’s no need to take more space as these positions will never amount to more than positions. The Republican situation is similar, only with Republican talking points about jobs and taxes. Chris Shays, who has two decades in Congress going for him, but is too liberal for many members of his party, spent time in the last GOP debate going over the old tale about McMahon spending $50 million to buy her own election, but not win it, when she ran against Dick Blumenthal two years ago.McMahon petulantly replied it was her own money and she earned it and could do anything she wanted with it.So here we are, facing a race for what amounts to a lifetime job in the Senate with both parties offering candidates in this substance-free campaign who are most likely to make voters with some history long for the days of senators like Abe and Lowell.If the election were held today, it would be between Murphy and McMahon, with Murphy likely to win (today) and join Blumenthal, who still behaves as if he’s attorney general, in the Senate. I’m too thrilled to go on. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.