Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

George Orwell said that the most difficult thing for a writer to see were events occurring right under his nose. The same holds true for voters. For many of us, voting is a duty and an obligation, like going to church on Sunday. But how many of us remember the homilies on Tuesday? Perhaps even the minister has forgotten his invocations by then. One should not render oneself unconscious before voting. Look before you leap, think before you vote. We know that it will not do to overlook recent history, because recent history is armed and dangerous. It might be instructive to approach Connecticut’s economic problems from a “can’t do” perspective. What are the reigning “can’t-do’s” in Connecticut just now?

Now that the party primaries have concluded, the substance of the play will change – because the audience will have changed. Democrat Party nominee Ned Lamont unsurprisingly dished Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim with 81 percent of the primary vote. On the Republican side , Bob Stefanowski hauled in 30 percent of the vote, 9 points more than Mayor Mark Boughton of Danbury, not a strong showing for a party nominee. In the hotly contested 5 th  District, abandoned by Elizabeth Esty after charges she had not moved quickly enough on reported incidents of  harassment by her Chief of Staff  against one of her female aides. Jahana Hayes upset party nominee Mary Glassman with a convincing 62 percent of the vote. State Senator Joe Markley won a resounding victory over his two primary opponents, and Susan Bysiewicz, hand-picked by Lamont for the Lieutenant Governor slot, prevailed over her primary opponent with 62 percent of the vote. During primaries, politicians tend...

It’s a pretty safe bet that former First Selectman of Trumbull Tim Herbst, now vying with Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton in a Republican Party Primary, will not be receiving the Hartford Courant’s gubernatorial endorsement in the upcoming 2018 general election. Elephants will fly first. There are sound reasons to suppose the chatter around the water cooler at the paper is not favorable to Herbst. A recent headline blares, “ Temperamental? Thin-Skinned? Republican Tim Herbst Says He's 'Authentic' .

Democrat Bill Curry has just bowed out of what promises to be an energetic tousle in Connecticut’s 5 th District. “Some of you,” Curry noted on his Facebook page, “ know I ‘ve spent the last three years studying public corruption; the grass roots movements that have sprung up-- everywhere but here [in Connecticut] -- to fight it; the tools being used around the world to curb it. It’s the big problem that keeps all our other big problems from ever getting solved. The project is close to my heart; after three years it is just now bearing fruit. In the month since Rep Esty said she wouldn’t seek reelection I’ve tried to find a way to keep the project moving forward and still make this race. I couldn’t. The race looked winnable to me and I’m confident it will prove so for one of the fine Democrats contending for the nomination. I promise I’ll help.”

There may be still, somewhere in this romantic world, a place for arranged marriages. The union of Ned Lamont, the millionaire gubernatorial candidate for governor preferred by Democrat leaders of the ailing state of Connecticut, and the mercurial Susan Bysiewicz – candidate, in no particular order, for governor, U.S. Senator,   attorney general, governor again and lieutenant governor – is an arranged political marriage. Uncle George Jepsen, the state’s retiring attorney general, told the Courant  the banns had been arranged for months: “’There’s a lot of stuff that’s still wide open especially on the under-ticket, but at the top of the ticket, things have been falling into line and coming together cohesively for several weeks now,’ said Attorney General George Jepsen, who has endorsed Lamont. Jepsen added: ‘I hope we’re boring compared to the Republicans.’”

Former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley ran a soft primary campaign. Indeed, during the Republican nominating convention, when it appeared certain that potential primary challenger John McKinney would not have sufficient votes to wage a primary, the Foley forces intervened and convinced enough nominating delegates to switch their votes so that Mr. McKinney might enlist in the primary. Concerning the delegate swap, there are two schools of thought.  According to the first, Mr. Foley was a gentleman and much too mild mannered to participate effectively in Connecticut’s political mosh pit. According to the second, the delegate swap gambit was a stroke of pure genius. In one bold move, Mr. Foley had split his primary opposition between Mr. McKinney and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton who, unlike Mr. McKinney, had rounded up enough Republican delegates to force a primary.

Republican Mayor Boughton of Danbury has bowed out of the gubernatorial campaign, apparently because he could not raise sufficient funds in time to gain access to public financing. When John McKinney appeared in Hartford to debate other Republican candidates for governor, he found himself quite alone.   Mr. Boughton had withdrawn, and Republican Party nominee for governor Tom Foley has been assiduously avoiding debates with other Republican gubernatorial candidates. Odd-makers think it will be a Foley-Malloy gubernatorial race after the primary in August. Joe Visconti is still in the race. Assuming the odds-makers are right, how will Mr. Foley fare against Mr. Malloy? No one knows because, possibly for strategic reasons, Mr. Foley is playing his cards very close to his vest. Usually, part of a contestant’s hand is shown during primary debates. Before declaring he intended to run again for office, Mr. Malloy said he was delaying his announcement because he wanted to give Republ...

Both Jon Pelto, now in the process of collecting signatures that would allow him to appear on the November general election ballot as a gubernatorial candidate, and Joe Visconti, who has declined to accept public funds to finance his campaign, likely would be put off by the term “fringe candidate” as applied to them. But there you are: A candidate for high office who has not been chosen by the Democratic or Republican Party nominating conventions and who, for strategic purposes, has decided to forgo a primary falls  necessarily into that categorical box. Campaign party reforms have made fringe candidacies not only possible but likely .

A few weeks ago, Governor Dannel Malloy said that people in Connecticut would have to wait until May to discover whether he would run again as governor. He then surprised everyone by tossing his hat into the ring during a recent bond hearing meeting. In fact, the campaign had begun much earlier; the cake was baked even though it lacked the cherry on top. Before his official declaration, Mr. Malloy had said he was much too busy running the state to engage prematurely in a political campaign. He told one reporter that it would be inopportune for him to engage in a political campaign before Republican gubernatorial aspirants had an opportunity to beat up on each other? The pretense was a great tease, strategically necessary but still an obvious imposture. The Republican gubernatorial field has now been fully fleshed out. Martha Dean, who previously had engaged in campaigns for the Attorney General, was a little late, but she got in before the door closed.

“The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning”-- Adlai Stevenson In her most recent press release, one can almost see state Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo ticking off the “made in Washington” campaign talking points: Boughton, “war on women,” check. Boughton,” anti-gay,” check. Boughton, “Tea Party,” check. Boughton, “extremist,” check. A busy demagogue, Ms. DiNardo usually is able to mold her mud pies into brief media bites at a moment’s notice. Here is the core of her media release :

The 2014 Democratic campaign for urban hegemony is now officially underway. It will involve the usual tousle among Democrats for political prestige and power in Connecticut’s larger cities. During his first campaign for governor, then Mayor of Stamford Dan Malloy – on becoming governor, Dan requested that the media refer to him henceforward as Dannel -- easily captured the urban vote and slid past Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Foley by the slenderest of margins. Mr. Malloy, once again in his reelection contest, may face Mr. Foley -- or some other worthy Republican champion; State Senator John McKinney has announced and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton is teasing from the sidelines -- and the remembrance of slender margins past has caused some wonderment among the state’s left of center media concerning Mr. Malloy’s recent campaign endorsements.

The first shots of the 2014 gubernatorial campaign were fired by Malloyalist pit bull Roy Occhiogrosso and state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo shortly after former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley announced at the end of November his availability for the Republican nomination for governor. Asked by a reporter to comment on Mr. Foley’s early entrance into the gubernatorial arena, Mr. Occhiogrosso sniffed, “We don’t comment on Tom Foley’s political ambitions. He lost one race. He’s more than welcome to lose another.” Ms. DiNardo, coloring within the lines of Mr. Occhiogrosso’s curt dismissal, said in a media release, “Tom Foley just doesn’t get it. Like Mitt Romney, he doesn’t understand the challenges that average hardworking people face. He is just another out-of-touch vulture capitalist who sees the average resident as something less. It’s a toxic world view that the voters of this country rejected just a few weeks ago. And if ambassador Foley runs again, he’ll find...

A day before the primaries, Citizens For Change (CFC) has released the names of those candidates who thus far have “publicly committed to the people of Connecticut that they will address the numerous public policy challenges confronting our state and our nation,” according to the group’s press release. CFC is inviting all candidates to sign its COMMITMENT FOR CONNECTICUT documents the group has made available on its website at http://www.cfc.us/ . Richard Olivastro, a spokesman for CFC, said that 17 candidates have led the way for others by signing the documents. They are: United States Senate : Peter Schiff United States House of Representatives : Mark Greenberg, Dan Reale, Rob Merkle, Justin Bernier, Scott DeShefy; LT Governor: Mark Boughton CT Attorney General : Stephen Fournier CT Treasurer : Jeff Wright CT Secretary of the State : Jerry Farrell CT State House : Kathryn Brown, Ken Nelson, John Searles, Malvi Lennon CT State Senate : Neil Nichols, David Pia, Len Suz...

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton announced yesterday that he would be running for Lieutenant Governor with Mike Fedele, the present Lieutenant Governor running for governor as a Republican. The Boughton announcement follows announcements by both Democratic candidates running for governor, former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy and Ned Lamont, that they had selected running mates for lieutenant governor. The specs for the job, Boughton declared, will be different should Mike Fedele become governor. Fedele, Boughton said, had been underutilized in the Rell administration: "We've made a commitment that we'll never run the lieutenant governor's office like that again. You'll be hearing from me. I'll be vocal, and I'll be Mike's full partner in managing this state. ... The bottom line is this will be much, much more than a ceremonial post. And I think the taxpayers deserve more, for $110,000 [per year in salary], than somebody that cuts ribbons and kisses babie...

The Danbury News Times is reporting that Mayor Mark Boughton of Danbury is preparing to primary Republicans. Boughton claims to have secured the votes of 15% of the nominating convention delegates, enough to force a primary. He discloses that his goal all along was to qualify for a gubernatorial primary. The same paper reports that Dick Morris, once a pollster to President Bill Clinton and now a conservative columnist and author, finds nominating conventions abhorrent and needlessly expensive. "Candidates spend a great deal of time and resources romancing party people who have no connection to the electorate," Morris said. "It has nothing to do with your ability to win a primary or, for that matter, the general election. It diverts money needed to win an election, and that's a mistake." Instead, Morris said, candidates should be able to pay a $5 fee to get on a primary ballot. "Give anyone who wants to run access to the ballot and let them figh...

Rick Green, a Hartford Courant columnist and blogger , reports on his blog CTConfidential that “Rowdy students prevented New Canaan's Ann Coulter from speaking in Ottawa” Canada, and he added “That will stop her” in apparent approval. Closer to home, UConn students successfully blocked Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton   from speaking on campus. Coulter said later that the Canadian university that scheduled her to speak was a second rate institution, and Boughton, who is running for governor on the Republican ticket this year, politely protested his exclusion from a law school panel before which he had been invited to speak. Boughten did not characterize UConn as a second rate college. Canada, more or less patterned after European models, has no First Amendment rights. Mark Steyn, a Canadian writer much published here in the land of Jefferson and Madison, has had a tougher time of it in Canada, where a quasi governmental agency – the amusingly miss-named Canadian Human Rights Comm...

The Hartford Courant has dropped an editorial hammer on soon to be Speaker of the House Chris Donovan’s baby, a deficient bill that would open Connecticut’s health insurance pool to municipalities, smaller businesses and non-profits. Sean Matterson, chief of staff to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, no shrinking violet when it comes to accepting state taxpayer handouts, claimed in a letter to a legislator that, far from saving his city $8.6 million, Donovan’s brainchild “would result in no savings from current costs.” Having done the math, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton says, according to the Courant, the bill would cost his city $5 million. The folk who claimed Donovan’s insurance pool bill would save Danbury $2.8 million… er…“forgot to include retirees in their calculations, an astounding math mistake no self respecting insurance company concerned with getting and spending would make.” Over in Massachussetts – formerly Taxachussets – few people have bought into the state’s new insurance...