Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Everyone in Connecticut knows that our state’s Democrat Party has become an ungainly hegemon concerned principally with denying Republicans a place at the state’s political table. That is one of the reasons there has been to date only two brief and inconclusive gubernatorial debates between Governor Ned Lamont and his Republican challenger Ryan Fazio. The Connecticut debates were not political contests in the fashion of the Lincoln Douglas debates. They were largely media shows. Lincoln and Douglas, pretty evenly matched, debated six times in is strategic areas of Illinois, during which the media served as stenographic reporters.   The Democrat Party hegemon in Connecticut may remind some of the giant in the fairy tale who, in hot pursuit of the princess, finds himself with one step far beyond her. Giantism in politics has invariably pointed the way to tyranny. Following the advent of the Stalin era in the Union of Soviet Socialist (emphasis mine) Republics, there was the unit...

Fazio and Lamont The off-year presidential elections will soon be over. Few expect breathtaking surprises. It is traditional in national off-year presidential elections for the party out of power, in this case Democrats, to gain seats in the U.S. Congress. In Connecticut, Democrats are expected to hold back an anticipated Republican eddy. Republicans have been telling us recent polling is defective. Nationally, Republicans are expected to lose some seats in the U S Congress. Statewide, Democrats are expected to maintain their margins. The obvious question at this point is: What comes next?   The tradition mentioned above concerning off-year presidential elections may be the only tradition that, for the time being, the rebels without a cause among American Democratic Socialist (ADS) are willing to tolerate. Their revolutionary movement calls for a unitary national legislature – no more U.S. Senate -- additional seats as socialist ballast to be added to the U.S. Supreme Court, a ...

Connecticut Dems Connecticut Democrats have little to worry about for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is:  political problems become worrisome only when the opposition party or an independent media has the political resources and the inclination to exploit the problem.   We know that Connecticut’s Democrat Party has been for 30 years and more the unquestioned dominant party in our state.   This dominance is longer-lived in the state’s cities, now dependent on majority Democrats for funding. Hartford’s last Republican mayor was Ann Uccello who presided as mayor from 1967-1971.   Political dominance, once attained, is relatively easy to maintain – particularly in a state like Connecticut in which the media, far less independent than it had been during the golden age of bipartisan government in Connecticut, partly for business reasons favors the hegemonic party in power.     One of the reasons “power corrupts, and absolute power...

Elci The trouble with bad    manners, Bill Buckley once said, is that they sometimes lead to murder.   Buckley was perhaps the most well-mannered contrarian journalist in the business, and he had a genius for friendship.   Considering the disposition of political forces in Connecticut – Democrats own the state, lock, stock and barrel -- most contrarian journalists would necessarily fall on the Republican side of the political barricades. They would also be conservative or libertarian.   Buckley s last significant collection of his writings -- Happy Days Were Here Again -- was subtitled, provocatively, “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.” Those who knew him well will testify that Buckley could handle disagreement without flyting off the handle.   Buckley’s irrepressible good humor always stood him in good stead. Asked by a New York Times reporter during his run for mayor of New York City against John Lindsey what he would do if – miracle o...

Sanders When we talk about political campaigns, we often resort to military terminology. In the United States, the campaign wars seem never ending. The chief problem with campaigns is that they are distortion mechanisms constructed to capture votes, which is why German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck said, “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” The quotable Bismarck could be disarmingly honest, as in, “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.”   For truth in politics, we look to disarmed retired politicians rather than active vote-hungry politicians.   In war, capturing the flag is an indication of a battle won, and so too in political campaigns. We think of accurate accusations of genocide, for instance, as a battle for the moral soul of a constituency. For this reason, it seems to Jews in the United States a false flag to accuse the state of Israel of genocide. The children of Buchenwald and Auschw...

  Fazio The story in the Hartford    Courant -- Where has CT GOP’s Fazio worked? What to know as governor’s race comes to vote – may be much ado about nothing, to quote Shakespeare.   The governor’s race will “come to a vote” in less than a month and so, from the point of view of loyal opposition, it is well timed. The opposition research folks who are paid for turning over political rocks – always selectively -- probably should be given a raise on this one.   The Courant tells us Ryan Fazio’s professional background includes roles in commodities trading, growth equity, and energy/agriculture sectors, but he has not publicly named the companies he worked for — a fact highlighted by the Hartford Courant as a point of political scrutiny.   All political politicians come from somewhere and, at the end of their political confinement, much too long in many cases, they go somewhere to cash in on their political service.   Republicans generally...