Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Blumenthal Even Achilles had an Achilles’ heel. U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal is up for re-election in 2022. He has been able to count on a nearly worshipful media in Connecticut that follows him doggedly on his many – too many, some would say – political rounds. As he himself once joked, “I have been known to show up at garage door openings.” And, it should be added, he is able – eager even – to duck the media when on rare occasions it presents to him questions that are not easily answered. Blumenthal is not a Charge of the Light Brigade soldier, his chest expanding to the oncoming rounds. Flight, for Blumenthal, is usually the better part of valor. The gods of incumbency, for whom old-hat becomes old very quickly, do enjoy their political perks. When the New York Times inconveniently disclosed that Blumenthal had not served in Vietnam, as he had represented several times during his frequent appearances on the state’s campaign stump, the omnipresent Blumenthal simply vanished, hope...

Nast Tammany cartoon The question “Why do Democrats win elections in Connecticut?” is intimately bound up with the question “How do Democrats win elections in Connecticut?” It helps a great deal to have a 400 pound gorilla in your corner. What shall we make of the proposition that we have the kind of government we have in Connecticut, left of center and increasingly progressive, because we have the kind of media we have in Connecticut, left of center and increasingly progressive? The media, as a political campaign amplifier, is not unimportant in campaigns. If you have a message and do not have a media to relay it objectively, you are at a considerable disadvantage. The media may not be the message, but you cannot present yourself adequately to voters if your message is damagingly edited by a media that has, in effect, chosen sides. Is this the case in Connecticut? The answer to the question is – maybe. There has got to be some reason, other than superior numbers, why ther...

Stefanowski It took no more than a few hours after Bob Stefanowski had formally announced he was running as a Republican to cast a pall over his nascent campaign. The title of a Hartford story read: “ Stefanowski seeks rematch: Strident conservative throws hat into the ring for second time by blasting Lamont, Democrats .” The lede read: “Outspoken conservative Republican Bob Stefanowski jumped into the race for governor Wednesday morning, looking for a get-tough-on-crime and cut-taxes agenda to lead a successful rematch against Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont.” One may well wonder: are all conservative Republicans “outspoken?” Do all of them, or just this one, carry verbal bombs in their pockets with which to assault innocent, unoffending Democrats? What are the limits of campaign oratory, and do only Republican conservatives transgress the limits? Stefanowski is quoted in part: “’Over the past three years, our state has become less affordable and more dangerous,’ he said. ‘We alrea...

Cromwell dissolving the Rump of the Long Parliament Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master – George Washington In 1653, Oliver Cromwell, God’s spokesperson on earth, entered Parliament and told the legislators assembled, to quit the premises, rudely dismissing the so called Rump of the Long Parliament. “Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do. I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to de...

  To honor the Reverend Martin Luther King on the day America has set aside for him, Connecticut Commentary is reprinting three blogs previously printed. The first is Lincoln And King , published on August 20, 2013. The second is Republicans, Martin Luther King, And the Strangers in Our Midst , published on January 14, 2014. And the third is The Black Family After MLK , published on February 26, 2014.

Trump The Trump Thing is a campaign ploy that may be, as the 2022 election year unfolds, utilized by Democrats here in Connecticut as a distraction and a unifying trumpet blast. The ploy served the Democrat Party well during one of Connecticut’s off-year presidential elections when Trump was not on the ballot and Democrats, by deploying the ploy at every opportunity, managed to wrest legislative seats from largely unoffending Republican office holders who were not in sync with Trump’s deplorable manners or his bristly and egocentric nature. Hardly any Republican office holders in the state bothered to defend themselves at the time from charges, overt or implied, that they were in league with the besieged Trump because they had failed to denounce convincingly the titular head of their own National Republican Party. Most instate Republicans appreciated Trump’s Supreme Court choices, his successful efforts to stem the rising tide of illegal immigration at the Mexican border, his suc...

As the New Year’s Eve midnight clock passed 12:00, Connecticut and the nation entered election year 2022. How does one know one has entered an election year? “With [Governor Ned] Lamont and the entire legislature up for reelection in November,” a Hartford paper tells us, “the race is on to see which taxes may be cut this year.” Voters tend to respond favorably to tax cuts. The title of the story emblazoned on the paper’s front page read, “ State legislators weighing tax cuts .” “Weighing” is the operative word. Then too, there are important differences between tax cuts and tax credits. A practical discussion implies legislative cordiality and bipartisan agreement. None of the discussions have yet been written in stone. House Republican leader Vincent Candelora warned that the Republican plan may not be embraced by “liberal Democrats.” However, the very presence of an upcoming election, he noted, “does change people’s behavior.” Candelora and the Republicans, at this early stage i...

Every so often a random piece in Quora , a site devoted to answering questions, will hit the eyeball like a hockey puck. Such is Patrick Reading’s short piece, “ Why do New Englanders dislike Connecticut and feel it's not part of New England ?” Those of us who live east of the Connecticut River will appreciate his discussion and his tone, a blend of sturdy New England cynicism mixed with melted, buttery humor – very New England. Reading’s working premise is that those with fortunes enough to live west of the river are imprinted with few characteristics normally associated with New England. “East of the River,” he writes, “is classic New England. It's blue collar working class people, who root for the Patriots and the Red Sox, the Bruins and the Celtics. It's quiet old mill towns that saw better days a hundred years ago, and are still grinding along. It's rustic, with greasy old garages, motor heads with 3 cars in the front yard, corn and cow farms, and forests wit...

New York 2022 A New Year’s wish is the secular equivalent of a prayer. There are however differences between the two. You pray to a deity you hopefully suppose may grant your prayer. But there is no Wizard of Oz behind the curtain of a New Year’s wish. Unlike a curse, forbidden according to Holy Writ, but much in evidence in our age of religious unbelief and anti-clericalism, a New Year’s wish is completely harmless, because it lacks a devil, a god or a congressman to enforce it. With that in mind, here are a few harmless New Year’s wishes: That Dr. Anthony Fauci , drawn to television cameras as moths are to flames, would just go away and leave the airways free of “science” hawkers peddling political programs. That Boards of Education in Connecticut would be just a touch more receptive to the people who elect members of the board to office. The principle of representation, which always involves gobs of modesty, requires an attentive ear to the general public, and this usually me...