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.
In Connecticut, the nominal head of the party would have
been Governor Dannel Malloy, if Malloy had not thrown in the towel. In his
absence, Murphy – oddly enough, not Dick Blumenthal, the senior Senator from
Connecticut -- has become Connecticut’s nominal kingmaker, and what the
kingmaker wants the kingmaker gets, usually. To a certain extent, party
organizations still exert influence on potential candidates who may assume open
positions. A Democrat candidate for governor, for instance, may run athwart the
wishes of the new party boss by engaging in a primary, or by financing his own
campaign. Very likely, some attempt will be made by party leaders to sweep the
stage clean of secondary actors Susan Bysiewicz and Mayor of Bridgeport Joe Ganim
before the Democrat nominating convention in a few weeks.
Bysiewicz is a tough candidate, and Ganim is showing signs
he will not go gentle into that good night.
“They’re missing the boat,” Ganim said of the party leaders.
“The Democratic Party has always been about people, not party bosses. [The
governor’s office has] never been won by millionaires coming in with boatloads
of money. We’ve rejected that.” If Ganim fails at the convention to get 15
percent of the delegate vote necessary to primary, he has vowed to petition his
way onto the ballot.
Even so, things appear to be looking up for Democrat
millionaire Ned Lamont, according to the story. Murphy, up for re-election in 2018, “is
quietly directing the party’s influencers towards Lamont,” rather than Susan
Bysiewicz. There is, Courant reporter Neil Vigdor supposes, bad blood between
Murphy and Bysiewicz, who “lost to Murphy in the 2012 U.S. Senate primary.”
Murphy spokesperson Laura Maloney puts it this way: “Sen.
Murphy has been having conversations about the future of the Connecticut
Democrat Party and is very involved in making sure there is a strong Democratic
ticket in the fall. But, no, he is not currently making calls or doing outreach
on behalf of any specific candidate.”
The general rule among non-transactional
journalists,
those who do not succumb to political influences, is that one should take with
a shovel full of salt anything said in a campaign by political spokespersons
whose business it is to plant directions in political narratives without
leaving behind the footprints of their bosses. Translation: Murphy would prefer
Lamont over Bysiewicz, but things have not yet progressed to a point at which
it is necessary for Murphy to flex his kingmaker muscles.
Lamont, like other prominent Democrats – Senator Dick
Blumenthal and Representative Rosa DeLauro come to mind – is a multi-millionaire,
and money, perhaps especially after campaign reform, is still the mother’s milk
of politics; just ask any kingmaker.
In the past, among both Democrats and Republicans, members
of the state’s U.S. Delegation have crossed over from the U.S. Congress to run
for governor. A list of recent Connecticut governors who also served in the
U.S. Congress would include: John
Rowland, Lowell Weicker, Ella Grasso, Thomas Meskill, Abe Ribicoff and John
Davis Lodge. A fair non-transactional journalist might want to know why Murphy
himself is not running for governor.
The answer to that question very well may be: When the king
has been dethroned by his own policies and you are required to mount the same
throne, it is far safer to be a kingmaker than a king. Lamont, the prospective Democrat
king, has promised to bring change to the governor’s office. There are two kinds
of change: quantitative change, MUCH more of the same, and qualitative change,
a different direction involving less ruinous and discredited policies. Lamont, thus far, has given no indication
which change he hopes to effect. Perhaps after the convention, he will tear off
his progressive mask and show his real face; for now, the millionaire businessman
is a question mark whose candidacy is supported by a left of center kingmaker.
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