Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Political campaigns are narrow spaces; there is not a lot of elbow room in them to explain in fulsome detail proposed public programs and their consequences. But a good campaign must represent more than a string of feel-good bumper sticker sentiments. Republicans vying for the gubernatorial race this year climbed out on a conservative limb and dedicated themselves to specific policy changes: no more tax increases; permanent reductions in spending; and, most alarming to progressive Democrats, the wresting of democratic government from powerful special interests -- i.e. union representatives.

A recent story in the Hartford Courant, “ Lamont Gaining Party Support ," focuses on U.S. Senator Chris Murphy as a Democrat Party kingmaker. Murphy is a kingmaker by default. Party bosses disappeared long ago. They were done in by two things: an anti-boss movement that had been picking up steam since very early press attacks on Tammany Hall, and reforms in election processes. The old party boss, usually a party chairman, fell victim to primaries and open elections. But necessary functions in politics do not disappear; they are transformed. In post-reform modern times, the party boss is the party’s most important elected official.

Sir James George Frazier, author of “The Golden Bough,” an examination of pre-literate, pre-Christian social mores among primitives, tells the story of a ritualistic punishment involving a murder. The foul deed was done with a knife. The village elders gather together in a hut and call witnesses to give testimony. First the presumed murderer is closely interrogated, then the family of the victim. Last of all, the knife is called to testify. Closely examined, it is pronounced guilty and suitably punished by the elders, who execute the weapon by throwing it in the river. Scapegoats are sometimes used for the same purpose; they are guilt receptacles that receive blood-guilt and are afterwards destroyed.

It’s OK apparently to offer false solutions to serious problems – a national replication of Connecticut’s gun restrictions will not prevent mass slaughters such as happened at a Country and Western concert in Las Vegas – but profiting politically from wading in blood may be a bridge too far. Concerning U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy’s most recent campaign money grab, Kevin Rennie writes in a Hartford paper, “If a politician is going to try to raise money off the dead and wounded of the Las Vegas slaughter only hours after the attack, be honest about it. U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy wants the money but wrapped his fundraising appeal in a deceptive request of support for control advocates. Murphy’s Monday email sought contributions for Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, Everytown and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. When supporters clicked through to the Act Blue donation site, there was a fourth organization splitting contributions, Murphy’s re-election campaign.”

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal announced he would vote in favor of the Obama/Kerry/Khamenei deal on the very day President Barack Obama had acquired enough votes in Congress to assure that any veto override would not occur. Mr. Blumenthal has issued a manifesto supporting his decision, a convoluted thousand word media release that quickly collapses from its own internal stresses. Mr. Blumenthal supports the deal because he prefers diplomacy to war – even, it would appear a diplomacy that enriches Iran and winks at the likely nuclearization of the Middle East.

As New York Senator Chuck Schumer goes, so goes… Blumenthal? Mr. Schumer’s forceful decision not to approve the Iran/Putin/Obama deal has been called a “break in the dike.” Democrats in the recent past have tended to march in lockstep with President Barack Obama. Mr. Schumer is a threatening crack in Democratic foreign policy obduracy. It is just through such cracks in the political asphalt, said Alexander Solzhenitsyn, that lonely flowers bloom.

A few weeks ago, Democrats and their sounding boards in the increasingly irrelevant media fired a shot across Republican Presidential candidate Mario Rubio’s “yacht,” hoping to sink his candidacy. It turned out the yacht was a fishing boat; but, no matter, Democrats had made a point. Republicans are rich – therefore insensitive to the vast yachtless middle class. Republican candidate for Governor Tom Foley suffered the same scrutiny -- with this difference: Foley really was rich, and his yacht did not resemble the creaky boats used by Mr. Rubio’s Cuban forbearers to escape the remorseless tyranny of the Castro brothers, both communists who long ago had declared war on yacht owners and political opponents and gays and others who opposed their brutal autocratic regime. Fidel Castro had a yacht. (See the picture above showing uber-rich Lowell Weicker canoodling with Fidel on his yacht.) Mr. Weicker, Maverick U.S. Senator and Governor of Connecticut, also had a yacht. The Castro ...

State Senator Edward Meyer of the 12 th District has decided, following nine year run in the General Assembly,   to call it a day. A New Haven paper  is reporting that Ted Kennedy Jr. will decide within two weeks whether he wishes to occupy the soon to be vacant seat. Mr. Kennedy is the son of the late Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.