Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

For the past eight years of the Barack Obama Presidency, the moderate Democrat, perhaps best represented by the much reviled former Connecticut U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman , has been an endangered political species. Having lost a Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, Mr. Lieberman won in the general election as an Independent, incurring the enmity of progressives whose heads even today explode at the mere mention of his mane. But following the unexpected rise to the Presidency of Donald Trump, the species is making a comeback in the person of U.S. Rep Jim Himes, who has been chosen to lead the New Democrat Coalition , “a group of about 50 Congressional Democrats that calls itself moderate and fiscally responsible,” according to the Hartford Courant . Boastful progressives in Connecticut, hardly a hotbed of progressivism before the advent of Barack Obama, are now fading into the woodwork. Up for re-election in two years, one expects U.S. Senators Chris Murphy to be less...

In the heyday of Tammany Hall, an intrepid reporter regularly interviewed a Tammany Hall chieftain, ward boss George Washington Plunkitt, and later put together in a small book an illuminating and unintentionally hilarious compilation of the interviews, “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.” One of the book’s chapters is titled “Honest Graft.” There are two kinds of graft, Mr. Plunkitt explained: dishonest graft, which benefits only the grafter, and honest graft, which benefits the grafter, usually a politician, and the general public as well. Honest graft advances the public good, dishonest graph advances only the private ambitions of bad men. Distinctions of this kind, though subtle, are important for politicians who wish to put a halo around questionable activities.  Democrats in Connecticut recently ran into a moral speed bump when, following a sit-in arranged by 1st District U.S. Representative John Larson, the Democratic Party used the occasion to raise funds for politicians in Connec...

Lori Hopkins-C avanagh ,  a Republican running for the U.S. House in Connecticut’s sprawling 2 nd District, is uniquely situated to unleash a thunderbolt against supporters of President Barack Obama such as U.S. Representative Joe Courtney, who wrested the seat from former Republican U.S. Representative Rob Simmons in 2006. Mr. Simmons lost to Mr. Courtney by a heart thumping 167 votes of more than 242,000 cast. An automatic recount concluded early in November showed Mr. Courtney winning by a slender 91 votes. Since then, Mr. Simmons has moved on to other pursuits: Yes, Virginia, there is life after Congressional politics. Now the Chairman of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a flickering conservative-libertarian candle in Connecticut’s bleak mid-Winter, Mr. Simmons  recently was appointed to the Board of Selectmen to fill a Republican vacancy in his beloved hometown of Stonington.