Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Republican Gubernatorial nominee Tom Foley has been accused of plagiarism in an attack ad endorsed by Governor Dannel Malloy. Should there be an FBI investigation? Knowing the ways and means of powerful political incumbents, an investigation of some sort may be in the offing. Incumbents have a way of turning the great water cannons at their disposal against their, relatively speaking, inoffensive challengers. When Hartford Courant columnist Robert Thorson  protested that innocent plagiaristic-like slip-ups were common in this the era of “copy and paste,” he risked being set upon by the righteous forces supporting Mr. Malloy, who has not yet been accused of plagiarism, though in this regard he is guilty as Foley. Mr. Malloy’s recent Bibb ad, in which former workers at the Bibb factory step before the cameras to accuse Mr. Foley of snatching food from the mouths of their children, was plagiarized from an earlier assault on Mr. Foley produced by Jamestown Associates and end...

“You cannot restore the fiscal integrity and competitive posture of this state unless you do three things: first, reduce state spending in absolute dollar terms; second, renegotiate state employee benefit arrangements in a manner that is fair to employees, retirees and the taxpayers who must pay the tab; third, right size state government and revise its operational practices. We also need to engage in regulatory relief and tax reform and other actions, but these three actions are critical.” That is Dave Walker, speaking more or less off the cuff. This is standard conservative – i.e. Chicago School – economic doctrine. A Republican running for Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Walker does not pull his punches. But because he is vying for a position comparable to John Nance Garner’s colorful description of the office of the Vice President, the punches land softly on the opposition. Mr. Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President, once described his largely ceremonial duties in scatolog...

Primaries are coming to a close in less than a week. It can’t happen soon enough. Primaries are a distortion medium. People will have noticed that while general elections are matter, primaries are anti-matter. A Democratic politician blown to the left in a primary has only a few months before the general election to make his way to the right, and the same drama occurs among Republicans, though the motion is in the opposite direction. It is said on these occasions that Democrats, courting unions and progressives in the primary, find it necessary to address themselves in the general election to moderates within their party, as well as unaffiliated voters. Republicans, drifting right during primaries, face the same conundrum. Promises made during primaries are often abandoned during general elections. All this shape shifting distorts politics. But what’s the alternative? That IS the problem. From the point of view of party people, the alternative – doing away with primaries – is unthi...

Is there anyone in the state’s Democratic dominated legislature who can say “No?” Apparently not. During the next budget cycle, the state will be facing a deficit that is about 20% of receipts. The size of the deficit has alarmed some in the Media and some in the legislature. Governor Jodi Rell may be unsettled, but her alarm has not itself reached alarming proportions. Rell, a lame duck governor, is due to leave behind at the completion of her term her office and its attendant responsibilities. The principal Republicans and Democrats vying for the position of governor are: former ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, present Lieutenant Governor Mike Fedele and Oz Griebel on the Republican side; and on the Democratic side, Ned Lamont and former Mayor of Stamford Dan Malloy. Over at the Journal Inquirer, Managing Editor of the paper and its chief political columnist Chris Powell warns darkly that anyone fortunate or unfortunate enough to become governor next November will have to make ...

While Lieutenant Governor Michael Fedele was savoring his court victory over Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Foley, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was sawing off the limb he was sitting on. The court struck down the “trigger provision” of Connecticut’s campaign finance system, a devise that awards extra public funds to candidates running against opponents not participating in the system who spend more than the system’s limits Meanwhile, in a Connecticut court, Judge Julia Aurigemma has decided that Fedele’s view of a Connecticut statute which, in the not so humble opinion of this writer and an apprehensive U.S. Supreme Court , violates the Constitution is the correct one. In writing the Connecticut statute that violates the U.S. Constitution, the judge ruled, the legislature DID envision the possibility of two clever politicians bundling their contributions so that they may steer their skiff around a restriction limiting the a...

The Waterbury Republican American asks who, among the candidates for governor this year, will have the courage to just say “No” to the spending frenzy that has gripped the state ever since ex-Governor and Senator Lowell Weicker – Is he gone yet? Is it safe to come out? – saddled state tax suppliers with an income tax and thereby a) saved a spend-thrift state government from the necessity of making real, permanent cuts in the budget and b) produced quickly spent multi million surpluses every budgetary cycle that increased an ungovernable appetite for spending, which has now produced a budget deficit that even Weicker deplores. Weicker deplored the deficit most recently on Colin McEnroe’s talk show, Dennis House’s show and other venues. His concern was touching, in a touchy feely kind of way. This year, Weicker is supporting Ned Lamont for governor. No surprise there; Weicker and his former chief aide Tom D’Amore supported Lamont – who, in his own campaign, now has hoisted Weicker’s...

This is how the Courant wrote up the SEEC decision released on Thursday : “The State Elections Enforcement Commission voted unanimously Thursday to award the grant to the combined committee of Fedele and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who are running as a team. Under the law, the money is awarded to the committee as ‘a single grant, which can be used to benefit both candidates,'’ according to the commission.” That report is correct as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Actually, the State Elections Enforcement Commission broke new ground in its interpretation of the state statute that gives the commission the authority to disperse tax dollars to primary challengers. The commission’s ruling means that any two people, not nominated as a legitimate combination by the relevant party nominating apparatus, may join together as a team for the purpose of acquiring tax money to run their joint campaign. Fedele had been having some difficulty raising the threshold amount necess...

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...

There is no log cabin in Lieutenant Governor Mike Fedele’s biography, but it’s an interesting read anyway: Born in Italy, Fedele came to the United States as a tot, worked hard and made good. He was plucked by Jodi Rell from the State House of Representatives to run as her Lieutenant Governor following the dark days of the John Rowland administration. Fedele now is running for governor on the Republican Party ticket, and there are some perilous cliffs he must negotiate along the way. The position of Lieutenant Governor is not the brightest spot in the political heavens. It is comparable on a state level to the Vice Presidential office, famously defined by John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President, as being (a clean translation follows) “not worth a warm bucket of spit.” Garner ran for the presidency and lost to Roosevelt but was chosen by the Democratic convention to share the ticket after he had released his pledged delegates to FDR. Garner later opposed Roosevel...

For a moment it appeared that Gov. Jodi Rell, 32 points up in the polls over Democrat gubernatorial candidate Mayor of New Haven John DeStefano, was sidestepping demands made by the winner of the Democrat primary, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. DeStefano had been chatting up the topic. John Rowland “may have broken some laws,” a frustrated DeStefano said, “but he was right on debates. You don’t own the office.” A response from Rell’s spokesman, Rich Harris, was not long in coming. "Listen,” Harris said, “there are a lot of things that John Rowland did that Jodi Rell is not going to do. Period. That may be one of the dumbest things that John DeStefano has ever said, and that's going some. We're not taking campaign guidance from John Rowland any more than we're taking ethical guidance from John Rowland." To DeStefano’s way of thinking, Rell had been avoiding occasions in which the governor might engage in verbal fisticuffs because she “would like to have an electio...