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Where Are They Now?

Alan Schlesinger, the Republican nominee for governor in the last election, has a home in Florida. And from this redoubt he plans to challenge new U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, according to recent news reports (read: “rumors”).

Ned Lamont, the heartbeat of the progressive movement in Connecticut – John DeStefano appears to be temporarily satisfied with his current position as mayor of New Haven – is planning an assault on Chris Shays’ seat in the US House of Representatives, according to recent news reports (read: “rumors”). This one seems plausible because bored millionaires are much in the habit of spending chunks of their fortune on easily purchased prestige acquired through political means.

Dianne Farrell, Shays' challenger mentioned in a recent interview that she once had taught Angelina Jolie, who is not married to Brad Pitt. Farrell revealed in the interview that Jolie's puffy lips were the real deal; no artificial insemination there. Farrell simply did not posses the political acumen to persuade Jolie to campaign for her. Had she done so, most of the red-blooded males in her district might have fled Shays like the plague, making a future Lamont campaign unnecessary. Life is full of missed cues like this.

Lowell Weicker, another bored millionaire, will, of course, back the Lamont candidacy: Former Republican Party Chairman Tom D'Amore, once Weicker's chief aide, is getting antsy hanging around the house, and the two haven't conspired to destroy Republican prospects since the last time -- which, come to think of it, was only a few months ago. They could have backed Schlesinger, now forced to beg for votes in Florida.

Nancy Johnson – dubbed the “Queen of Mean” by progressive detractors – is tending to housewifely chores and seemingly enjoying her forced retirement.

And someone is spreading ugly rumors that Edith Prague, a fixture in the state legislature, intends to write a bill establishing a People’s Toll Booth at the front of the Legislative Office Building, recently the scene of a Watergate style break-in. Governor Rell also is anxious to raise more revenue for the state, mostly to support failing schools that the ruling elite, with a curtsey to teacher’s unions, is determined not to shut down, to which end the governor has proposed an increase in the income tax. Both Prague and Rell, unappeasable revenue boosters, will be with us for some time – unless, though this seems unlikely, the state Republican Party begins to offer some resistance to the status quo: higher taxes, more spending and accelerated business flight.

Finally, Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat perennial favorite for governor is still, alas, the state attorney general, but two recent miss-steps – his appointment as the Connecticut chairman for Sen. Chris Dodd’s nose-diving presidential campaign and his failure to sue Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez for something (for anything actually) – have given hope to millions that he might, with a little persuasion, agree to abandon his sinecure for either Rell’s or Dodd’s present position.

These speculations are tentative because a) only a few benighted idiots believe that Dodd was not a lying Pinocchio when the wrote the federal campaign commission that he would not run for senator ever again, b) Blumenthal 1s a great prankster, one in spirit with the two plumbers who revived hope among silver-haired news hounds that Watergate is not dead, and c) Governor Rell likely will not retire to Florida after her current terms ends, a rumor begun, some suppose, by the disgruntled Schlesinger in repayment of the governor's non-support during his late race against Lamont and Senator Joe Lieberman, who is, much to the regret of sore-loser progressives, still alive and kicking against the pricks in Washington DC.

But the final nail in the Blumenthal-for-governor campaign may be his recent attempt to reduce energy costs for consumers by encouraging Rell to enter the extremely competitive and complex energy business. The same state that finds it necessary to raise taxes to support an educational structure that cannot teach urban children to read by the fourth grade now wants to help citizens crushed by high taxes with their energy bills by becoming an energy broker.

That final step toward the Rubicon would be what real brokers call a bad investment.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice to see a summary of our hardworking public servants. Since dropping the tedious Hartford Courant for the livelier NY Post i miss out on these things.

The rise of the self financed candidate is a real peril. Their record is pretty poor on both sides of the aisle. Politics does take an apprenticeship and also needs some allies. All of these a real party affiliations provides.
Don Pesci said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Don Pesci said…
I agree. It's a consequence of a weak and impoverished state party system. My lightbulbs have a longer life than most Republican Party chairmen, who serve at the pleasure of the governor, and many of them are brighter too.

You might try the Waterbury Republican American, if you live in their distribution area. It's Connecticut's New York Post.

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