A Machiavellian Account of Postmodern Political Campaigning

John Bailey and Jack Kennedy

Democrat Party political boss John Bailey dominated Connecticut politics from 1950 until his death in 1975. He coordinated his party’s politics in Connecticut and oversaw election campaigns in the state’s General Assembly, which is a polite way of saying he pulled most of the political strings in what used to be a rock-ribbed Republican state. When he had finished bossing Democrats, his party had become a bastion of highly electable Jewish and Catholic politicians such as Governor Abraham Ribicoff, U.S. Senator Thomas Dodd, Governor John Dempsey, and Governor Ella T. Grasso.   

The reformed postmodern Democrat Party of today is considerably less disciplined, and political candidates have long discovered that the two major parties are little more than flags under which Democrats and Republicans gather to sport the wares of individual savior politicians, all of whom are responsible for raising their own campaign funds. Nearly every major politician of long standing in Connecticut is, in effect, his own political party. The party boss is dead these many years. Long live party primaries, which resemble nothing so much as Thomas Hobbes’ view of life in general -- "nasty, brutish and short."

Candidates in the postmodern period are expected to generate their own campaign funds, an arrangement that most often gives an unsurpassable advantage to tiresome incumbents. In the upcoming Connecticut U.S. Senatorial contest, incumbent Dick Blumenthal will be carrying into his new campaign old money generated in past campaigns.

According to Open Secrets, Blumenthal raised $8,825,840 in his last campaign, spent $5,891,505, and left $2,953,419 in his campaign kitty or future use. Blumenthal’s opponent during his last campaign, Dan Carter, raised $366,217 and spent $358,095.

Rosa DeLauro, a progressive candidate in Connecticut’s 3rd District, New Haven and some of its suburbs, produces on average $1.2 million in her campaigns, spends far less and donates the surplus to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a portion of which -- in what used to be considered a quid pro quo among alert, nonpartisan reporters and editors in the state – is returned to the DeLauro household in the form of jobs for DeLauro’s husband, Stanley Greenberg, a pollster to progressives and twinkling Democrat politicians.

“Federal Election Commission data reveals that over the past four election cycles, Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) donated more than $ 1.2 million dollars to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,” Human Events reported a few years ago. “Over that same time period, the DCCC paid $1.9 million for polling services to Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. GQRR’s founding partner is DeLauro’s husband of 33 years, Stanley B. Greenberg.”

All this is what New York’s Tammany Hall in its lustrous heyday used to call “honest graft” – that is to say, perfectly legal, self-serving enrichment. The great trick in postmodern politics is to write legislation that seemingly puts an end to dubious activity and yet imports into such legislation loopholes that do not interfere with the reprehensible activities of incumbent politicians.

Just now, the Great Incumbency is exercising itself over reforming what used to be called in the good old days insider trading and stock option speculation. After reports emerged that Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi and her investment savvy husband may have been flirting with both, Pelosi quickly jumped on  an emerging bandwagon denouncing insider trading among members of the U.S. Congress.

Political corruption, like the poor, will always be with us, but campaign limits likely would equitize corruption among a new brood of politicians. And, an additional benefit, limited terms in office would stir the Party pot. Blumenthal would not have been Attorney General for 20 years if term limits had been in effect decades ago. He might have been Senator much earlier, or Governor of Connecticut, or a wealthy, retired ex-officio figurehead of his party, like former President Barack Obama, who some suspect may be getting ready to shoehorn his wife into the presidency – the first Black woman president, don’t you know.

Recently, the Washington Free Beacon shot a corruption tipped arrow in Blumenthal’s direction:

“Blumenthal disclosed that he and his wife sold between $1,265,000 and $2,550,000 worth of shares of Robinhood in the last quarter of 2021. At the time, Blumenthal joined a chorus of lawmakers in calling for investigations into Robinhood's role in supporting a speculation frenzy involving shares of GameStop. Blumenthal did not probe the matter even though he was well positioned to do so as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection.

“Blumenthal's disclosures come amid debate on Capitol Hill over whether lawmakers and their spouses should be banned from trading stocks. Lawmakers from both parties have proposed bills to limit or outright ban stock trades. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), one of the most prolific stock traders in Congress, endorsed a proposal on Wednesday to ban members from trading stocks. Blumenthal has yet to sponsor any of the bills proposed in the Senate.”

In high dungeon, Blumenthal responded that his stock portfolio, handled by others, was hardened against corruption and he didn’t know what was in it.

Sure, sure, blind trusts are neither totally blind nor corruption free. It in the bad old days of Bailey bossism, watchful bosses in both parties kept a critical eye on such things before they pulled an Ella Grasso into a governorship or an often recirculated Abraham Ribicoff into the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and the governorship of Connecticut.