Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

A few weeks after announcing he would not officially begin his campaign until the General Assembly had shut down its short three month session in May, Governor Dannel Malloy officially opened his gubernatorial campaign in Stamford, his old political stomping grounds. Mr. Malloy had been mayor of Stamford for four four-year terms before becoming governor. In Stamford, Mr. Malloy explained his “early” announcement to reporters who long ago had exploded the absurdity that he was not running for governor. He had in fact been campaigning behind the veil for some time; like his counterpart in the beltway, President Barack Obama, Mr. Malloy is a perpetual campaigner. And like most politicians, he is given to telling what Mark Twain used to call “stretchers.”

Governor Dannel Malloy’s non-campaign for governor is an insider joke among virtually all Connecticut journalists. If it talks like a campaign, is attended by prominent politicians and holds media availabilities at the home of U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro – it’s a campaign. Mr. Malloy’s non-campaign status allows him to shrug off as pointless the usual campaign confrontations among viable candidates. His is a stealth campaign that permits his campaign designers to preview possible themes without making commitments to specific proposals. Until May, when he will formally unfurl his campaign banners, Mr. Malloy’s campaign will be on hiatus. Specific questions put to him by Connecticut’s news media will be handled by functionaries or out of pocket strategists such as former gubernatorial spokesman Roy Occhiogrosso, a Vice President of Global Strategy. These responses – because they cannot be attributed directly To Mr. Malloy -- will be non-committal and every bit as inscruta...

Last Year the state – i.e. Governor Dannel Malloy and majority Democrats in Connecticut’s General Assembly -- decided to end its long-time practice of sending out paper checks for tax refunds. The state decided instead to use refund cards for a variety of purposes, including the refunding of tax over-payments. When state Senate leader John McKinney, now a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, called for a hearing on the change, autocratic Democrats snickered that a public hearing was quite unnecessary. Indeed, the Republican Party, it would seem, was quite unnecessary. Go away. It turns out that some data in the cards has now been exposed to possible identity theft. About 14,335 accounts have been breached, and State tax commissioner Kevin Sullivan, who once served in the state Senate with Mr. McKinney, is still snickering.