First a disclaimer: Nothing in this piece should be taken as
a formal endorsement of the candidates mentioned below. In more than thirty
years of column writing, the author has never made a formal endorsement, and it
would be a pity to ruin a perfect record.
That said, it’s almost impossible to avoid noticing that the
Republican Party in Connecticut has been crowded lately with young blood, not
to mention the women upon whom Republicans are supposed to have declared war. This
is partly the result of the Republican Party’s years in the wilderness.
Once a politician wins an election, he becomes the
incumbent, and incumbents have insuperable advantages over challengers.
Except in times of extreme stress, most people vote on
auto-pilot. It is well known that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state
by a ratio of two to one. Unaffiliateds outnumber both Republicans and
Democrats. It is therefore no surprise that Democrats enjoy a majority in the
General Assembly. All the state’s Constitutional offices are held by Democrats.
Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation is uniformly Democratic, and with
the election of Dannel Malloy as governor, Democrats now command the heights. So then, most incumbents in Connecticut’s new
one-party state during the next few elections will be Democrats, a great
advantage for the party of stasis.
It is the Republican
Party that, at least in Connecticut, is the party of change.
Change comes hard. No great struggle is needed to float with
the current. As G. K. Chesterton once said,
“A dead thing can go with the stream,
but only a living thing can go against it.” The political current in
Connecticut has a decided Democratic undertow. Still, it is much more
invigorating to go against the current, a struggle that often appeals to the
dauntless young.
It is possible that
Republican challengers are young because the incumbent herd – both Republicans
and Democrats – has grown old in office. Time thins old herds. A stressful time
also thins the incumbent herd, and we are living, as the Chinese philosopher
says, in interesting times, “interesting” being the opposite of placid and
peaceful, a period in our state in which voting on auto-pilot may be fatal for
Mother Connecticut. The expression “May you live in interesting times” is
thought to be a Chinese curse.
I’ve listed below
only two young Republicans, both of whom I met recently at an event, the first
annual “Women on Fire” awards dinner, which featured as keynote speaker Alveda
King, the niece of Martin Luther King, who delivered an alarmingly apposite
address. During the event, awards were presented to Pat Longo, the energetic
Republican National Committeewoman, and Crystal Wright, a glorious black
conservative explosion. The “Woman on Fire” event was organized by Regina
Roundtree, a young Republican who also wants watching. Ms. Roundtree is the
head of Connecticut Black Republicans and Conservatives (CTBrac).
Penny Bacchiochi has represented the 52nd House
District, Somers and Stafford, in the General Assembly since 2002. Energetic, very bright, well prepared
politically, Ms. Bacchiochi this year is running for Lieutenant Governor on the
Republican ticket. She is firmly grounded in education and social work and has
held the Republican Caucus Chair position since 2009. Ms. Bacchiochi does
effortlessly what so many other politicians do ineptly: She translates her own
varied experience into pragmatic political programs. Experience is, after all, the wisest teacher.
Ms. Bacchiochi believes in a politics of limits and has more than a nodding
acquaintance with constitutional prescriptions. She will fight in the trenches
with a bayonet in her teeth for an enduring principle. So did Cardinal John
Henry Newman, but Newman also said, “In a higher world it is otherwise, but
here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
Tim Herbst, nowrunning for State Treasurer, is made of the same mettle. These are not
young people who, having wandered into the woods to find themselves, have
gotten hopelessly lost in briars and tangles. Mr. Herbst knows his own mind,
has more than a functional understanding of politics, is fully capable of
charting a course that will steer Connecticut away from its present treacherous
path and, much to his credit, has never contributed a single penny in campaign
contributions to the author of Dodd Frank, a mischievous entanglement that will
pull Connecticut and the rest of the nation into the weeds and frustrate the
free flow of information and creativity that lies at the center of wealth
creation.
Immediately upon
taking office as First Selectman of Trumbull, Mr. Herbst took ownership of his
town’s problems. Coming into office, Mr. Herbst knew full well he could expect
little help from either the federal government, deeply in debt and far removed from
Trumbull’s needs, or state government, which had simply passed onto the towns
costs associated with unfunded mandates and a highly politicized
administration. In the meantime, inflation, contractual obligations, bonded
indebtedness and maintenance and operational costs all were banging on
Trumbull’s doors.
Right from the
get-go, Mr. Herbst said, “I learned an important lesson: We can depend on no
one but ourselves, and we must empower ourselves to take action.”
Mr. Herbst took
action. He fulfilled a campaign pledge by identifying $1 million in operational
savings during his first 100 days in office, turned a budget deficit into a
surplus, decreased property taxes 3.5 percent, raised pension funding to
adequate levels and negotiated labor agreements that reduced the number of
pension eligible town employees. As a result of his exertions, Fitch, Moody and
S&P, the nation’s principal rating services, all lauded Trumbull’s improved
financial position.
Most recently, Fitch
lowered to “AA -- Outlook Negative ”Connecticut GO Bonds, those bonds to which the full faith and
credit of the state are pledged for payment of principal and interest.
More than thoughtful
political behavior, entropy seems to decide the direction of states.
Republicans were in the majority in Connecticut’s state senate for only two of
the last twenty years; and, during the same time period, Democrats were in the
majority in the state House for all twenty years. One cannot expect beneficial
change to arise from a party so entrenched, and it is by no means certain that
voters in Connecticut will be turned any time soon from their enabling entropy
by anything less crippling than a disabling crisis.
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