Hageman on the Republican Party

Note: The video below is somehat dated. But in any necessary reform, it helps to take a look back before taking a leap forward.

At the end of the presentation below, State Senator Joe Markley steps forward to recommend Doug Hagemen as Chairman of the State Republican Party, and he credits Mr. Hagemen for having cajoled and pushed and pulled him into state politics.

I would add my commendation to his. Mr Hageman's remarks show the French were right when they said -- it sounds better in French -- "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

The easy thing about having a conversation with Mr. Hagemen is that you don’t have to say a word; just turn the tap and watch the water flow. But what water -- politically fresh, ever burbling, cool in the throat. And when you’ve finished your draft, you feel somehow that you’ve swallowed the whole damn flowering Spring.

Though a suburb salesman, Mr. Hageman I doubt ever worked for Nordstrom, which is too bad, because there he would have felt right at home. Business operatives across the county used to come to store and ask top management what their great secret was, with a view to copying it, returning to their more placid businesses and applying the magic, awakening a burst of energy that would renew their own listless enterprises.

The same thing would happen all the time. They would be given a card showing an inverted triangle, its point stuck improbably into the ground, its massive base hovering overheard. And the business executive from, say, Widgets Inc. would be told something like this: This inverted triangle represents our business model. The point, significantly at the bottom, is the president of Nordstrom. Above him are the top managers of the company. Above the top managers, we have the individual stores and their presidents and management teams. Above them, we have all the individual departments -- which are run more or less like independent boutiques -- and their managers. Above these managers, we have the individual sales persons.

The Widget Inc. president would listen politely -- wondering at this operational madness that puts a salesman at the top of the business edifice, the president of the company occupying the very bottom rung – and leave with the little inverted triangle dangling from his fingers.

And the operational scheme really was an operative scheme; that is the way things worked. Ideas came percolating up from the bottom – and the best them were implemented, their originators rewarded for having improved the business operations. Above the top base of the triangle, it was understood by everyone from the heights of the sales floor to the depths of top management, were the clients of the store – the real bosses.

Mr. Hageman’s idea for rejuvenating the slumberous Republican Party in Connecticut involves triangular inversion.

Casey Chadwick’s Uneasy Life after Death

Casey and her mother Wendy "I just started grief counseling. I'm always sad. I'm sad and in pain and I miss her." Wendy Hartling Hartling is the mother of Casey Chadwick, murdered in 2015 by Jean Jacques , an illegal Haitian immigrant. Jacques was convicted of the murder of Chadwick in a New London Superior Court jury trial and sentenced by Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed to a 60 year term in prison. Since Jacques is 44 years of age, the sentence was, in effect, a life sentence. Connecticut Commentary coverage of the Chadwick murder may be found here , and here and here . Jacques could not have been sentenced to death because Connecticut’s Democrat dominated General Assembly, under pressure from the state Supreme Court, had abolished Connecticut’s death penalty law in 2012 . The slaughter of Chadwick was particularly brutal. Her body had been found by a friend who, opening a door to a closet, discovered Chadwick stuffed in a dark corner drenched in blo...

Understanding North Korea Through Dramaturgy

The U.S. military is sending the Vinson Strike Group, including the carrier and two guided-missile destroyers, to operate in the Western Pacific Ocean in response to Pyongyang’s recent missile tests. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, asked about the strike force, issued a terse statement: “The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.” Is this a post-Syrian bombing mission? Will the US take out North Korea’s missile launching sites, possibly with the unspoken concurrence of China? Never let a bombing go to waste. There are some in the United States who think any such incident should be used to rid North Korea of that runty little totalitarian cock-of-the-walk who keeps his countrymen starved, in fear and at his knees. Since we only have one chance, they say, go for the clean sweep -- no more Kims. Connecticut Commentary is reprinting an earlier piece about the Kims here. Best read with a glass of port.

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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