Lamont’s Lieutenant
Governor, the personable Susan Bysiewicz, lips tightly sewn, looks on diffidently.
Why did Lamont think
it necessary to stiff Balletto?
“Nick and I worked
together like this,” said Lamont said, holding up two fingers held together.
“After that primary he was a great leader for the party, but we’re starting up a
new government, and I thought it was time to make a change here.”
Before and during
the primary, Balletto did not jump joyfully through Lamont’s campaign hoops.
Like Joe Ganim, who tousled with Lamont during the Democrat primary, Balletto
is a big city Democrat with a world of experience under his belt, a bit of a
street fighter and good man in a narrow alley. The political roots of the
decade long Chairman of the Democrat Party run through New Haven; Ganim is mayor
of Bridgeport. On the eve of the Democrat primary vote, Balletto announced
phlegmatically that he would support the victor of the primary, not an unusual
posture for a party chairman.
Wyman, Malloy’s “yes
woman” during his two terms in office, has some experience dealing with a
Democrat majority in the General Assembly. There are no visible thorns on her rose.
Balletto accepted
his dismissal with some grace. Said the now discarded Party Chairman, “I’ve
been in politics my entire life, and these last few years might have been the
proudest and the biggest honor I’ve ever had. We were able to bring together
all the activists to channel the anger after the 2016 election and turn it to
action that put our candidates over the finish line in November.”
One can be sure there
will be a featherbed down the road for Balletto. It will not do in a new
administration to have the prior Democrat Party Chairman wounded without
recompense. People sometimes blab to curious reporters, books are written, vengeance,
a dish best served cold, is savored, and then …
A backroom omertà,
lathered as usual in political
jargon, was smeared over the proceedings. Before Balletto was tenderly
dismissed, the crew had dinner together. In affairs of this kind, a dinner is
essential, followed by the usual press availability in which all the associates
are permitted to brandish their chest scars or swagger behind the new political
boss into office.
It only remained for
Lamont to whisper in Balletto’s ear, “Nothing personal Nick, it’s business.”
There are more
Italians per square inch in Connecticut than can be found in any other state,
but Lamont is not in office to play the usual political games – ethnically balanced
tickets and the like. He was swept into
office on a wave of discontent with the policies of the prior administration. When
the present occupant leaves office, he will be gainfully employed in Massachusetts,
a state people in Connecticut used to call, disparagingly, Taxachusetts. But
that was before Malloy snatched the golden crown from Taxachusetts’ head.
Thus far,
Connecticut’s media, panting for more taxes, is in Lamont’s corner. The
Governor-In-Waiting has massive majorities in the General Assembly, half of
which are Ocasio-Cortez progressives. The feminist version of Ocasio-Cortez in
Connecticut is U.S. Senator Chris Murphy.
All the members of the U.S. Congressional
Delegation and all the constitutional offices in Connecticut are held by
progressive Democrats anxious to make the world over so that it resembles a
cross between Switzerland and Venezuela, without Switzerland’s penchant for
arming its citizens. Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership
in the world, but little gun-related street crime, an embarrassment to senators
like Blumenthal and Murphy, both of whom are afflicted with hoplophobia.
In Connecticut, the
highest taxed state in the nation, we are all quasi-socialists now. What could
possibly go wrong?
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