Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Ned Lamont -- the Greenwich millionaire who with an assist from former governor and senator Lowell Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s income tax, Bill Cibes, the godfather of Connecticut’s income tax, and Tom D’Amore, for many years Weicker’s top aide, ran and won a primary against Sen. Joe Lieberman but lost the general election -- has now resurfaced with the three above mentioned gentlemen in tow. Mr. Lamont has launched a broadside against Governor Jodi Rell on a popular blog site called Connecticut Local Politics . Gov. Rell presently is in camera with Democratic budget leaders. The governor and Democratic legislative leaders are desperately trying to come up with a budget that a) does not sink the good ship Connecticut with yet more burdensome taxes and regulations, and b) is acceptable to state workers and union leaders, the state’s permanent shadow government. These two goals may be irreconcilable, but that is not the point of Mr. Lamont's most recent broadside, pe...

Genghis Conn, Chris Bigelow of Enfield, recently proposed on his blog site, Connecticut Local politics, the question “ Has Dodd’s Moment Passed ?” The Headless Horseman weighed in with this answer: “With Dodd currently polling somewhere in between the guy who fills the soda vending machine at the US Capitol, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s bones, I’d say his time is long passed, if he in fact ever had a shot. “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it took him this long to actually run for president. Look how long it took him to grow up, stop going to Spring Break with Ted Kennedy, and get married and have a child. “I expect him to have a mid-life crisis when he is 143 years old.” That’s a “Yes.” But it’s a “Yes” burbling with what bloggers call snarkiness: a smart answer, deeply layered with irony, a little vitriolic, the sort of response to a reasonable question not likely found on the editorial pages of a respectable hometown paper. Comments in the commentary sections of blogs are anything but ...

It was bound to happen someday. A blogger at the popular blog site, Connecticut Local Politics, has ratted out another blogger to the FBI. BRubenstein, who blogs under his own name, took umbrage at comments made by “Senator Harry Reid,” not the bloggers real name, and took the matter up with the Feds. Most bloggers use pseudonyms. Anonymity tends to stiffen the spine, which is why blog sites are a wee bit more freewheeling – some would say more recklessly irresponsible --than, say, the good, grey New York Times. The fake “Senator Harry Reid” inserted himself, just before the Democrat convention, between the warring camps of Sen. Joseph Lieberman and challenger Ned Lamont, who had received a great deal of support, moral and monetary, from Daily Kos, a blog site popular with Democrat progressives and anti-Iran-war drum beaters. On May 7, “Senator Harry Reid” dropped by the site and said: The complete failures of the Republicans in Washington have made America less safe, less secure, and ...