Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

As everyone must know by now, the lean and hungry Susan Bysiewicz made an oopsy daisy in one of her campaign ads. She said that her Democratic primary opponent for the U.S. Senate, current U.S. Representative from Connecticut’s 5 th District Chris Murphy, was numero uno among congressman in accepting campaign donations from hedge fund operators, the newest devil in the progressive lexicon of those who will go to the wall just as soon as progressives seize power in the Beltway. In fact, Mr. Murphy is number four among congresspersons receiving campaign benefits from finance groups in the United States and falls considerably behind his colleague. U.S. Representative Jim Himes, who brushed noses with the malefactors of great wealth when he was employed by Goldman Sachs . According to the authoritative CTNewsJunkie , “Chris Murphy has received significant financial support from Wall Street donors—to the tune of $700,000 since 2006— and voted for their interests.” AndCTMirror rep...

It’s getting very WWE out there among progressives. The long anticipated tousle over ads has begun. U.S. Representative Chris Murphy so far has produced a downy soft introductory ad showing Mr. Murphy pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store, accompanied by his wife and children. Along the way, he meets various actors posing as potential voters who toss his way the kind of easily answered soft ball questions and remarks his likely GOP opponent, Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate Linda McMahon, should not expect whenever she gets around to visiting editorial boards across the state. The first “shopper” to accost Murphy, his delightful wife Cathy and their two children detests the partisan bickering that has become a common feature in congress during the age of Obama. Could Mr. Murphy, after his election to the U.S. Senate, please do something about that? Here one expects Mr. Murphy to remove his arch progressive Rough Rider’s hat, don his rakish ah-shucks-...

Lee Whitnum of Greenwich, running for the U.S. Senate seat that soon will be vacated by Joe Lieberman, is not likely ever to be mistaken for Mr. Lieberman. In the course of a Democratic debate with other candidates vying for the seat, Ms. Whitnum told moderator Gerry Brooks of NBC Connecticut that she would have to amend her prepared closing statement just a bit , after which she tailspinned into language the normally quiescent Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo later would call inappropriate: “I believe she crossed the line of inappropriateness.” Gesturing toward U.S. Representative Chris Murphy on her left, Ms. Whitnum said, “I'm dealing with [a] whore here, who sells his soul to AIPAC [ American Israeli Public Affairs Committee ] , who will say anything for the job," and then turning to her right and indicating State Rep. William Tong , she fired yet another bazooka, slamming Mr. Tong as “ignorant.” It does not take much to bait Ms. Whitnum on all things Isra...

A recent story in the Hartford Courant, “ Lamont Gaining Party Support ," focuses on U.S. Senator Chris Murphy as a Democrat Party kingmaker. Murphy is a kingmaker by default. Party bosses disappeared long ago. They were done in by two things: an anti-boss movement that had been picking up steam since very early press attacks on Tammany Hall, and reforms in election processes. The old party boss, usually a party chairman, fell victim to primaries and open elections. But necessary functions in politics do not disappear; they are transformed. In post-reform modern times, the party boss is the party’s most important elected official.

Former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, now running for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacated seat along side U.S. Rep Chris Murphy, may have had her front grill dented a bit in recent days, but it must be said the lady now is in fearsome forward motion. Mrs. Bysiewicz has called for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan as soon as practicable and, by so doing, got a jump on the laggard Mr. Murphy, who has been advertising himself in different venues as the progressive’s progressive. The modern progressives, nearly all of them Democrats, not so long ago were bestirring themselves as anti-war zealots. Who can forget Cindy Sheehan’s often reported march on former President George Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch? During the Bush presidency, the air crackled with fervent calls by then presidential campaigner Barack Obama to shut down the Iraq war shortly after the Petraeus surge had been launched. The progressives were hot on closing down GITMO, still open for business. A not ye...

The AFL-CIO union endorsements of U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, now running for U.S Senator Joe Lieberman’s seat in congress, caught no one by surprise. Unions have been riding Mr. Murphy during his three terms in the Congress, and there simply is no point changing horses in the middle of the stream. Incumbents such as Mr. Murphy enjoy what might be called the presumptive vote; and, of course, incumbents generally have under their command resources unavailable to those who seek to displace them. Never one to fear burning a candle at both ends, Mr. Murphy’s resources include large PAC donations from both business groups and unions, generally assumed to be ideological opposites. That Mr. Murphy is supported by both groups suggests a certain programmatic fogginess and political agility one associates with politicians who have spent a lifetime in the Beltway having their cake and eating it too.   Business PACs, routinely scourged by Mr. Murphy when he is talking to union...

What do U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, the state Democratic Party nominee for the U .S. Senate, and Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president, have in common? They are both victims of misleading ads, and those who initiated the ads refused to pull them after they had been shown to be pock marked with errors. A Democratic primary ad criticizing Mr. Murphy approved by Susan Bysiewicz was found to contain errors of a minor nature. The ad claimed Mr. Murphy was the number one recipient of Wall Street hedge fund contributors in the nation. Mr. Murphy was number four, not number one . Mr. Murphy’s lawyers at one point threatened to sue Connecticut television stations carrying the ad, even though the stations were obligated by law to run it. Eventually, Mrs. Bysiewicz pulled her ad, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief; no legal suits were filed. The anti-Romney ad -- the handiwork of Priorities USA, a super PAC founded by former White House spok...

Like U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and Dick Blumenthal before her, Susan Bysiewicz was looking for a sure-thing. Blumenthal replaced U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, with minimal resistance from Republicans, and Murphy replaced U. S. Senator Joe Lieberman.   Both Lieberman and Dodd were passé liberals; Murphy and Blumenthal are hip progressives. The seats were retained by Democrats in a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by a two to one margin. Bysiewicz, who has been known to change her mind concerning which post she would like to hold, had been considering a run for the State Senate in District 13, but then the heirs apparent to an open gubernatorial seat that is to be vacated by lame-duck Governor Dannel Malloy began dropping out. Comptroller Kevin Lembo, an early candidate, had second thoughts; lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman pleaded grandchildren; Middletown Mayor Dan Drew stumbled on route and bowed out.

Who shapes politics? The question is not quite so easy to answer as it may seem. In what some politicians consider the good old days, politics was fashioned by the public official running for office, a handful of political associates, party leaders and a few old boys in the establishment media network. In the modern period, party bosses have all but disappeared; the media network has expanded to include, comedians, Hollywood starlets and bloggers; both political parties have been shorn of much of their power through campaign reforms; primaries have made party convention decisions much less decisive; and politicians – if they are not incumbents – may have half a dozen reasons for entering the campaign jousts.

Salon Weighs in on Connecticut’s U.S. Senatorial Race Alex Pareene, who writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt [Romney]," has weighed in on the Chris Shays-Linda McMahon Republican primary contest for the U.S. Senate in an article titled “Chris Shays has no respect for Linda McMahon: The last Yankee Republican shares his honest opinion of his primary opponent.” Mr. Pareene, formerly of Gawker, is likely not from the nutmeg state, but this is no impediment to Mr. Pareene, who writes: "Shays is pro-choice, pro-gun control, an environmentalist, pro-gay rights, pro-campaign finance reform — basically your classic New England Yankee Republican. Or as we call them now, 'Democrats.”'This helps to explain why he’s having so much trouble defeating someone as ridiculous as Linda McMahon, whose sole asset as a politician is her great wealth, which she earned off the labor of poorly treated 'independent contractor' wres...

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin is only the most recent of the casualties. In the midst of exploring a run for governor, Bronin, unable to garner sufficient support and money, the mother’s milk of politics, quietly dropped out of the race. After a state bailout of $550 million, any politician not driven mad by personal ambition would have considered the mayoralty of bankrupt Hartford a softer political bed than the governorship of a failing state, a bed of nails. The State of Connecticut and Hartford on March 27 inked a contract   according to which the state will pay off the city's approximately $550 million general obligation debt over the next 20 years. Hartford's annual debt payments, projected to top $56 million by 2021, will also be “reduced” to $35 million per annum through the expedient of pushing payments into future years. Bronin has had lots of company. Governor Dannel Malloy himself, after having consulted the auguries, decided not to run for a fourth t...

In a brief interview with Hartford Courant writer Rick Green , former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays has given an indication that he will pull no punches in his likely Republican Party primary with Linda McMahon. Mr. Shays told Mr. Green that Mrs. McMahon’s record as a former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) will be an issue in his campaign. "Her record and her conduct,” Mr. Shays said, “are an important part of the process. Everything that she's done is going to be an important part of the campaign. I'm not going to take punches. I'm not a Quaker." Mr. Green writes that Mr. Shays “also promised to stick to his moderate Republican roots. ‘I'm not going to try to win the primary and lose the general election.’" A possible battle between Mr. Shays and Mrs. McMahon is certain – provided Mr. Shays sticks to his script – to have a “ déjà vu all over again” flavor to it, Mr. Shays serving as a double for former Rep. Rob Simmons, who lost to Mrs. McMa...

Biden-and-Trump-2024-NBC News It’s pretty well known in Connecticut’s conservative Republican circles that the state’s media, aping the national media, is squarely in President Joe Biden’s corner and would be delighted to see former President Donald Trump, their bête noir, squiggling on a hook in political Hell. That is pretty much the refrain of former State Senator Joe Markley, who left the General Assembly to run for Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut in 2018 but lost the general election to Democrat Susan Bysiewicz, and current State Senator Rob Samson , who continues to torment neo-progressive Democrats in the state’s General Assembly by supporting sound conservative principles. Conservatives in Connecticut and the nation continue to be rattled by Trump’s political persona, bristly and somewhat solipsistic, but they support his policy prescriptions over those of Biden, who presided over a botched American withdrawal from Afghanistan, a southern border policy that has left border...

Republican Senate Minority Leader John McKinney called upon Democratic Speaker of the House Chris Donovan to relinquish his position as Speaker following the arrest of his former finance chairman, Robert Braddock, for having concealed the identity of a donor, likely an FBI plant, who wanted to kill tax legislation on “roll your own” cigarette businesses in Connecticut. Pointing to an affidavit used to secure the arrest of Mr. Braddock, Mr. Kinney said, “The facts and allegations in the affidavit are a grave violation of the public trust and cast a pall on all of the legislative activities Speaker Donovan has participated in since announcing his run for the U.S. Congress in the 5 th District,” a fairly damning assessment. For his part, Mr. Donovan temporarily turned over the usufructs of his office to colleague Brendan Sharkey, who is expected to be appointed Speaker after Mr. Donovan’s term ends, and he has refused a call from one of his Democratic primary opponents, Dan R...

Yet another Connecticut politician – this time Sen. Joe Lieberman – has given up his sinecure in the U.S. Congress. Mr. Lieberman follows former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd out the door. After pledging not to become a lobbyist, Mr. Dodd, shaking from his feet the dust of Washington D.C., has now become – ta! da! – a lobbyist. But not just any lobbyist. Mr. Dodd has covered himself in tinsellated glory and is now the chief lobbyist for the motion picture industry. Mr. Dodd sups with the stars , sure and begorrah. This year the former Beltway fixture missed Connecticut’s Jefferson, Jackson Bailey dinner. Mr. Lieberman – on the outs with his party for being Joe – also missed the dinner. But Mr. Lieberman offered progressive Democrats his compliments by leaving office, which has opened a frequently shut door to present Speaker of the House Chris Donovan. Mr. Donovan was seen at the JJB dinner this year sporting on his lapel a picture of a guitar – the Speaker is really a frustrated rock sta...