Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Chris VanDeHoef has crossed the i’s and dots the t’s of newspaper consumers in Connecticut who suspect that the press showers favors on left of center Democrats. According to a piece in CTMirror , founders of a new SuperPAC committee that will be showering favors upon Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate Chris Murphy “include Chris VanDeHoef, a lobbyist who is executive director of a media trade group, the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association, and Kevin Graff, who became a Hartford lobbyist after stepping down last year as chief of staff of the state Senate Democratic majority.” Joining the Murphy mutual admiration society is Jeffrey Garfield, who retired in 2009 after more than 30 years as top dog at Connecticut’s Elections Enforcement Commission. Reporter Greg Hladky in CT.com , a site affiliated with the Advocate chain of newspapers, took Mr. Garfield to task for embracing a disease formerly scorned by both Mr. Garfield and Mr. Murphy. It may be important to...

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s principled stand in favor of ending the invidious “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in the U.S. military has elevated him to heroic status among some liberals, but the news continues to rasp the more tender consciences of puritanical progressives who feel they must applaud Mr. Lieberman’s efforts even as they strenuously condemn the man. All this hero worship, Greg Hladky writes in the Fairfield Weekly , is a Washington beltway distortion: “Isn't it interesting how different the Lieberman situation appears down in Washington compared to the Lieberman reality back home?... Lieberman stands virtually no chance of winning the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.” Here at home in the progressive camp, Mr. Lieberman’s dark deeds will not easily be forgotten or forgiven. Mr. Hladky ticks off a familiar bill of particulars: “It wasn't just Lieberman's unquestioning support for the Iraq war that produced the hostility. It wasn't just Joe's affectio...

" Sen. Dodd and I agree on many things, but we also disagree on many things. I'm not reluctant to say that I've never been a part of Washington . I've never been an insider. And I'm happy to be running to stand up for ordinary people." – Democratic Party Nominee Richard Blumenthal It strains credulity to view Mr. Blumenthal as a political outsider. He has been, variously in his long political career, an administrative assistant to U.S. Senator Abraham Ribbicoff; an aid to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later a U.S. senator, when Mr. Moynihan was an assistant in President Richard Nixon's White House in 1969; a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun in 1974; U.S. Attorney for Connecticut at the ripe young age of 31; and a volunteer council for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Mr. Blumenthal also wrote for the Washington Post newspaper. These are all Beltway connections. Additionally, Mr. Blumenthal served in the Connecticut State House of Repre...

Former Department Of Transportation chief Joseph Marie has now lawyered up, as the lawyers sometimes say. It is supposed that he was urged out of his position by Governor Jodi Rell or, as some in the commentariat community may suppose, by her evil twin, chief gubernatorial aide Lisa Moody . On an informal complaint of harassment, Marie was called on the carpet by a lawyer attached to Rell’s office, a pre-written statement was put in front of him, and he was told to sign it -- or else. The statement was a resignation plus: If Marie would agree to resign and whisper not a word concerning his resignation to the media, the state, represented by Rell or demon Moody, as the case may be, would agree to let him go peaceful into that good night and whisper not a word concerning the real reason for his speedy departure, which was this: One of his associates had made an informal complaint alleging sexual harassment against Marie. Here, half a dozen or more questions drum on Marie’s close...