Blumenthal’s Matters

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, hopeful that the stain of stolen valor would not permanently deface his artfully crafted political escutcheon.

It didn’t.   

With an abundance of media presence and money, Blumenthal has been able to fend off his many challengers, both as Attorney General of Connecticut for two decades and now as a U.S. Senator. The Attorney General’s position has been for ambitious, politically driven Democrats a springboard into higher office. Former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman vaulted successfully into the U.S. Congress from the AG’s office in 1989, defeating Republican (kind of) U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker, a twinkling star among Democrats who matter.

There are many hiding places for Democrat politicians in Connecticut, particularly for those, like Blumenthal, whose relationship with the media has been, shall we say, cordial and mutually beneficial. Incumbents give the press copy, and the press usually gives incumbents a sometimes too cozy media berth. Former President Donald Trump was, of course, the exception that proves the rule. In media matters, Trump seemed determined to burn his bridges before he crossed them, without ever looking forward.

The Damoclean Sword hanging over the heads of both the Democrat and Republican Parties are question marks. Will Trump attempt to recapture a presidency he lost to President Joe Biden, and will Biden, a   septuagenarian approaching 80 years of age and soon to be suffering from a Hunter Biden infection, run for a second term? The answer to this two-headed question is blowing in the wind.

Blumenthal, by the way, has yet to be asked the question: Do you suppose Hunter Biden’s Panglossian business misadventures in Ukraine, Russia and China will have any bearing on the reelection prospects of the titular head of your party?

Biden’s prospects are intimately tied up, in the post Trump era, with the prospects of Connecticut Democrat office holders. We have seen how effectively Connecticut Democrats have used Trump as a foil in off year presidential elections to unhorse Republicans in the state’s General Assembly.

After 12 months as President, Biden, according to almost all recent polling, is making Trump look good by comparison. Chris Cillizza of CNN, no Trump dummy, is not at all happy.

The U.S. southern border during the Trump administration was more than a demarcation line on a map. Energy was low cost and plentiful. Afghanistan had not yet been surrendered to the Taliban, which continues to treat women as decorative elements in Islam’s Big Tent. Inflation, largely owing to an unquenchable appetite for reckless spending, was yet manageable. Under Biden, vast spending projects, labor shortages, supply chain interruptions, mayhem in most major Democrat controlled cities, and pointless, self-defeating diplomatic ententes with sworn enemies of the United States have reinstated former President Barack Obama’s “lead from behind” ethos.

Many of these misfires give rise to direct, real world consequences that, unlike theoretical disputes, directly affect life in the land of the free and the home of the brave. The Democrat Party used to be the party of the Middle Class, excessively concerned with predatory billionaires who now contribute less to Republicans and more to the Democrat Party's quasi socialist agenda. No more.       

Will Biden be Blumenthal’s Achilles’ heel in 2022?

To be sure, Blumenthal may, as always, seek refuge in the cozy embrace of a media committed to progressive goals that so far have resulted in a regression to formerly failed policies that look good only in papers or in the rarified atmosphere of ivy league institutions of higher nonsense. The general discontent with a needless repetition of past failed policies is growing. Can-do, pragmatic Americans are temperamentally impatient with incompetence and destructive attacks on competence.

The thing about incompetence is – you can neither run nor walk away from it. It is the dark obverse shadow of competence. It follows your every yes and no. Americans generally pride themselves on knowing what works and what doesn’t work. All the polls indicate that the general public, as opposed to favored special interests – read: unions, public employees, Planned Parenthood, and lately victimized felons -- strongly feels Bidenism hasn’t worked.