Skip to main content

CT Republicans: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory


Guest Blog

By Sean Murphy

The August 14th Republican primary left me quite confused.

In our current environment, only half of Republican voters voted for Joe Markley for Lt Governor.

We elected an actual outsider president who, astonishingly, makes and keeps promises.  Americans of all political backgrounds despise double talking politicians.  We can see every day how murderously the Swamp in DC behaves towards President Trump.

Why would so many Republicans not vote for a man, Markley, who not only led the anti-income tax Ax the Tax Revolt in 1991 but has always voted against tax increases?  All relevant polls indicate that the economy continues to be the number one concern of voters. Here in Connecticut, ever increasing taxes continues to rasp voters of every political persuasion; not surprising since outgoing Governor Dannel Malloy has encumbered Connecticut with the largest and second largest tax increases in state history.

And yet nearly half of primary voters did not support the only politician among Republicans who has a consistent track record going back decades against taxes.

Pause for a second and think about this.

The reason why Republican Party regulars have tuned out on the question of ever increasing taxes and declined sufficiently to support Markley should be obvious to Stefanowski: The Connecticut Republican Party is controlled by people who have no desire to fix anything.  These insiders simply want control for their own benefit -- financial power, political status and ego fulfillment.  Most of the elected State Reps and Senators in Connecticut are only looking out for themselves.  An obvious and irritating proof of this is that legislators get to count their mileage reimbursement towards their pension.  Behind the scenes, where much of Connecticut intra-party politics occurs, the Republicans were successful in quashing ameliorative reform.

Previous candidates with a lot of money to throw around made sure they did.  Insiders and elected officials (or their immediate families) were given jobs and/or their businesses were hired for campaign reasons. As the well-known WWF wrestler The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase said in his entrance song “Everybody’s Got A Price.”

If Republicans were interested in winning, they would lead and offer solutions to problems.

Bob Stefanowski will win the general election if he runs a true outsider campaign.  He must repeatedly expose the corrupt system that has economically destroyed this state.  This will require him to demand changes that negatively impact the pocketbooks of his fellow Republicans.  He will find out that he will face a lot of resistance from his supposed “own party.”

To turn Connecticut around, there have to be massive structural changes to business as usual.  The fat cats make a lot of money off the current system and will fight this tooth and nail (just like they have in Washington DC).  It truly is them against us.


 Sean Murphy is a Connecticut political activist.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The PURA soap opera continues in Connecticut: Business eyeing the exit signs

The trouble at PURA and the two energy companies it oversees began – ages ago, it now seems – with the elevation of Marissa Gillett to the chairpersonship of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulation Authority.   Connecticut Commentary has previously weighed in on the controversy: PURA Pulls The Plug on November 20, 2019; The High Cost of Energy, Three Strikes and You’re Out? on December 21, 2024; PURA Head Butts the Economic Marketplace on January 3, 2025; Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA on February 3, 2025; and Lamont’s Pillow Talk on February 22, 2025:   The melodrama full of pratfalls continues to unfold awkwardly.   It should come as no surprise that Gillett has changed the nature and practice of the state agency. She has targeted two of Connecticut’s energy facilitators – Eversource and Avangrid -- as having in the past overcharged the state for services rendered. Thanks to the Democrat controlled General Assembly, Connecticut is no l...

The Murphy Thingy

It’s the New York Post , and so there are pictures. One shows Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy canoodling with “Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill.”   The canoodle occurred one day or night prior to Murphy’s well-advertised absence from President Donald Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress.   Murphy has said attendance at what was essentially a “campaign rally” involving the whole U.S. Congress – though Democrat congresspersons signaled their displeasure at the event by stonily sitting on their hands during the applause lines – was inconsistent with his dignity as a significant part of the permanent opposition to Trump.   Reaching for his moral Glock Murphy recently told the Hartford Courant that Democrat Party opposition to President Donald Trump should be unrelenting and unforgiving: “I think people won’t trust you if you run a campaign saying that if Donald Trump is ...

Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA

Marissa P. Gillett, the state's chief utility regulator, watches Gov. Ned Lamont field questions about a new approach to regulation in April 2023. Credit: MARK PAZNIOKAS / CTMIRROR.ORG Concerning a suit brought by Eversource and Avangrid, Connecticut’s energy delivery agents, against Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Agency (PURA), Governor Ned Lamont surprised most of the state’s political watchers by affecting surprise.   “Look,” Lamont told a Hartford Courant reporter shortly after the suit was filed, “I think it is incredibly unhelpful,” Lamont said. “Everyone is getting mad at the umpires.   Eversource is not getting everything they want and they are bringing suit. It was a surprise to me. Nobody notified me. I think we have to do a better job of working together.”   Lamont’s claim is far less plausible than the legal claim made by Eversource and Avangrid. The contretemps between Connecticut’s energy distributors and Marissa Gillett , Gov. Ned Lamont’s ...