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Murphy As Kingmaker, Not King



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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