Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

In his film “America, America,” loosely based on the life of his uncle, filmmaker Elia Kazan puts his thumb squarely on the very pulse of immigrants, not only the Greeks in Turkish Anatolia fleeing oppression, but all immigrants, whatever their point of origin. To the “oppressed and huddled masses” seeking to pass through the golden door of Lady Liberty, the America of Kazan’s uncle was less a nation than an emotive idea. What idea? In introducing Malvi Lennon of Windsor to a gathering that had come together in West Simsbury to support her candidacy as a Republicancandidate for the Connecticut State Senate in the 2nd District , former U.S. Representative Rob Simmons, recently installed as the new Chairman of Connecticut’s Yankee Institute, mentioned that the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba during the administration of President John Kennedy remained fresh in his mind because one of his supervisors at the CIA was among the first to land on the beach. Mrs. Lennon was...