Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

According to Jonathan Pelto ,  who ran out of money in his short-lived gubernatorial bid before he could seriously challenge Governor Dannel Malloy, Governor Dannel Malloy’s promise of a tax reduction was “a hoax.” It’s difficult to disagree with him. Three days prior to Mr. Malloy’s budget address before the General Assembly, the governor appeared on WFSB’s  "Face the State” and told moderator Dennis House he would be cutting the sales tax rate from 6.35 percent to 6.20 percent on Nov. 1, and to 5.95 percent more than two years from now, in April of 2017. The governor who had imposed on Connecticut the largest tax increase in its history had become, in the twinkling of an eye, a tax cutter, a miraculous transformation.

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea -- T.S. Elliot Kevin Rennie, a Harford Courant columnist, is regarded by some in politics as the Torquemada of Connecticut commentators – especially in matters of what one might call political ethics. Many politicians have felt his bite and winced.

The following slug appeared on the front page of a Hartford paper the day after a Face the State debate between Democratic U.S. Representative Chris Murphy and Republican Linda McMahon, both of whom are vying for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat: “Another 90 seconds and no answers,'' he [Mr. Murphy] said, "not a single specific cut that Linda McMahon would support, and another example of fealty to a supply-side trickledown economics that just hasn't worked." The statement bears close examination, but Mrs. McMahon did not during the debate force such an examination.

“Embattled” is a word you do not want waltzing around with your name on the eve of a U.S. Congressional election. “Embattled 5th District Congress candidate Chris Donovan,” the Register Citizen reported , “in a taping of WFSB TV’s ‘Face the State’ Thursday, said he has no plans to quit the race even if his campaign’s troubles start to adversely affect other Democrats and party leaders urge him to leave. Mr. Donovan is under scrutiny by the FBI for campaign financing irregularities. His campaign finance director, Robert Braddock, is under arrest for having conspired to hide the identity of certain donors allegedly involved in influence peddling; and other Donovan connected officials, two of whom are directly connected with his U.S. Senate campaign, have been named in an affidavit supporting the arrest of Mr. Braddock. Thanks to some impressive digging and nagging by a host of reporters , the influence peddlers –tagged anonymously in the affidavit as CC1, CC2 and CC3 -- have now bee...

Dennis House of “Face the State,” WFSB Channel 3, was kind enough to send along the following link: