Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The last few weeks of 24-7 news has been dripping with unintended irony. Just as the Democratic Party was setting up to attribute former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s loss to political stumble-bum Donald Trump as a result of President of Russia Vladimir Putin's interference in her campaign, President Trump bombed Bashir al Assad of Syria, Mr. Putin’s Kewpie Doll. The bombing served to mute some of the more outrageous claims. Everyone but Dick Blumenthal has been investigating the Trump-Putin connection; so far -- nada.

Newsweek was over confident. The magazine set up its front page showing Democratic Presidential nominee defeating real estate mogul Donald Trump – two days before Election Day. Scrap that. Prior to Mr. Trump’s victory, a Hartford Courant political writer instructed a Talk of Connecticut Election Luncheon audience that “The Donald” was sub-human , and Bill Curry, whose support of socialist Bernie Sanders quickly shifted to Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton once Mrs. Clinton had bumped off Mr. Sanders, declared that Mr. Trump was “emotionally unbalanced, a fascist, and a fraud” . Perhaps after Mr. Trump has been in office a couple of years, Mr. Curry will readjust his depreciation of President Elect Trump, even as he has frequently adjusted his politics between the now abandoned Mr. Sanders and the re-embraced Mrs. Clinton.

In his latest column, “ Maybe A Little Bible Study With John Rowland, ”  Hartford Courant columnists Colin McEnroe confesses, “As some of you know, I began going to church in April 2015.” Groucho Marx used to joke that he would decline to join any group that would have him as a member. Mr. McEnroe is not so illiberal, but he makes plain that there are conditions: “We are not Jerry Falwell Baptists. We are LGBTQ-friendly. In fact, we have more LGBTQ pastors than we have the other kind. Baptists get kind of a bad name sometimes. Elijah Craig was a Baptist minister, and some people say he invented bourbon. That's the kind of Baptist we can be proud of.”

“Character is much easier kept than recovered” – Thomas Paine According to a story appearing in the Waterbury Republican American , “Former state Comptroller Bill Curry, the 1994 and 2002 Democratic nominee for Governor, was even more direct. ‘No one under any cloud of investigation is on any serious list for any appointment in any White House. It simply isn’t worth the enormous political and moral hazard,’ he said. Mr. Curry was a White House adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s husband," former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Curry believes that Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has no chance – zip – of acquiring a position in the administration of future President Hillary Clinton. 

                                                                                    Q: Who are the Trump supporters? A: Right now, they are, for the most part, people who are unattached, emotionally or ideologically, to either of the two major parties. The Obama administration has abandoned altogether what used to be called moderate, Reagan Democrats. Some of these people, left in the lurch by progressives, have crossed over to vote for Trump. He is running very strong among Republican, Democrat and unaffiliated white males. Within the narrower category of alienated moderate Republicans and Democrats, there are numerous sub-groups: resentment Republicans and Democrats, people who have, in one way or another, been slighted by what they refer to, disdainfully, as the party ...

The Democratic left, mostly progressives these days, is not sweet on presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Signs of displeasure are everywhere. Bill Curry, who ran for governor of Connecticut -- losing twice to Republican Governor John Rowland, now on his way to prison for the second time -- has laid out in Salon   the progressive brief against Mrs. Clinton.  Mr. Curry, once White House counselor to President Bill Clinton, has determined that Mrs. Clinton, former First Lady, former U.S. Senator, former Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, is squishy on progressive issues dear to Mr. Curry’s heart.