Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Governor Ned Lamont’s slippage in the polls is not surprising. Former Governor Dan Malloy, now gainfully employed reforming education in Maine, casts a long shadow, and Lamont’s policy prescriptions – including his budget, now on its way to approval by the Democrat dominated General Assembly – do not differ much from Malloy’s in matters of getting and spending. Some may notice that a new expression, “modernize” and its variants, has made its way into Democrat oratory. Lamont said of his massive sales tax increases, “Look, we’re gonna try and modernize our sales tax structure… In fact, wanna know why sales tax revenues are already up compared to what we had expected” That’s cause of sales tax applying to e-commerce.” Lamont is a graduate of high-priced colleges. So what’s all this business about “gonna” and “wanna”? Do Harvard and Yale lack speech teachers? The use of the word “modernize” is gonna become an Orwellian catch phrase for “increasing and broadening sales taxes....

Occhiogrosso and Malloy Tolling in Connecticut is what the advertising men would call a tough sell, and it helps in circumstances such as these to bring in some political spin doctors to assist in the delivery. Many people in Connecticut, almost certainly a majority, do not want tolls. On May 9, No Tolls Connecticut delivered to the governor’s office a “No Tolls” petition signed by 100,000 people. Candidate for governor Ned Lamont said during his campaign he would favor tolls only if people outside the state, truck drivers mostly, would be depositing their mites in Connecticut’s revenue collection basket. He said this several times while the TV cameras were rolling. Later Lamont changed his mind, always the prerogative of pretty women and ambitious politicians. But Lamont’s reversal – which came shortly after he had won his gubernatorial campaign – could not be justified as a “misspeak.” He could have used the services of a good narrative builder right there, but Ro...

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman -- Louis Brandeis And, Brandeis continued, “Selfishness, injustice, cruelty, tricks and jobs of all sorts shun the light; to expose them is to defeat them. No serious evils, no rankling sore in the body politic, can remain long concealed, and when disclosed, it is half destroyed.” Brandeis’ notion has long since become the anthem of modern journalism, properly practiced. Political trickery flourishes in the dark. The magician must shroud his trick in half light and distraction to pull the rabbit out of his hat. Journalism, properly practiced, is the sworn enemy of secret cabals.

On Capitol Report , Roy Occhiogrosso, Governor Dannel Malloy’s chief cook and bottle washer during his first term, had this to say about State Supreme Court Associate Justice Andrew McDonald: “I worked with Andrew, as you know for a couple of years.” Before being appointed by Malloy to the Supreme Court, McDonald was the Senate co-chairman, along with House Rep. Mike Lawlor, of the Judiciary Committee. Occhiogrosso continued, “I’ve known him for a long time – very smart, very careful, very conservative in the sense that he observes the bright lines he is supposed to observe.” It is telling that Occhiogrosso, who perhaps knows the mind of Malloy better than most, should be constrained to announce that McDonald is in some approvable fashion conservative. Some legislators, not all of them conservative, might more justly argue that McDonald has rarely seen a bright line he has not ventured to cross.

I t’s not at all unusual for aides employed by governors and presidents to make their way into lucrative businesses that are, once the aides have left public service, profitably engaged with entities connected in one way or another with their former bosses. Communication directors for presidents or governors occasionally are hired by news networks that report on government operations, or governmental aides join lucrative firms that advise businesses or politicians how best to interface with government bigwigs. The walls that separate politics and corporate entities that do business either with a state or national regulatory octopus are semi-permeable.

It should have been obvious that Luke Bronin, who prevailed over incumbent Mayor Pedro Segarra in a primary, would be the next Mayor of Hartford. In one-party Democratic towns, the victor of a Democratic primary most often wins general election contests. A Hartford paper noted that Mr. Bronin had amassed a campaign war chest of $937,377, an abundance of riches the paper terms “unprecedented,” by which we should understand “indecently obscene.” Mr. Bronin’s competitors in the Mayoralty race – Republican candidate Theodore "Ted" Cannon and Working Families Party candidate Joel Cruz Jr., running for Mayor as an unaffiliated candidate, were impoverished, relatively speaking.  Mr. Cruz raised $19,587, Mr. Cannon $1,500, spending  $1,224 mostly on lawn signs. The money Mr. Cannon spent attempting to reach the hearts and minds of voters will surprise the same sort of people who will be astonished to discover there is a Republican Party in Hartford.

Documents, e-mails and the like that usually provide a backdrop to political campaigns generally are not made public, unless they are subpoenaed by an aggrieved party. Following a complaint made by Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola, Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) has subpoenaed documents and communications involving Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and several of his top aides, according to story broken by George Coli of NBC Connecticut News Live . Mr. Labriola charged in his March 2014 complaint that Democrats illegally circumvented the state's ban on contractor contributions during the last gubernatorial campaign by laundering money through a federal account used to pay for mass mailings benefiting Mr. Malloy.

It would take someone like Murray Kempton to do justice to the Rowland “tragedy,” admittedly a much misused and overused term. Unfortunately, Mr. Kempton – ever the gentleman, friend to the lonely and crushed – died in 1997, and we shall not see his like again. Bill Buckley, whose like we shall not see again, said of Kempton   that he was a “socialist — a sworn enemy of all anti-Communist legislation, sworn friend of militant unions” also “the finest writer in the newspaper profession,” disposing of a “wit and irony and a compassion which is sometimes unruly.” Buckley, who had a genius for friendship, then added that Mr. Kempton was “a great artist and a great friend.” Innocence, of course, is the essence of tragedy, and we know after a trial and an appeal – soon to be followed by more appeals, until Mr. Rowland runs out of money, at which point all the lawyers will disappear – that Mr. Rowland is NOT innocent. Mr. Kempton would not have focused on the trial or the ap...

Roy Occhiogrosso, now back in the fold as a top  adviser  to Governor Dannel Malloy, has taken a bullet for the boss. Mr. Occhiogrosso was plucked from Global Strategy Group (GSG)  to work as a flack catcher during Mr. Malloy’s first term, left the administration after a few years and returned to his roost, was rewarded for his tireless work in the Malloy vineyards with a Managing Director’s post at   the Hartford office of GSG ,  and now is making his second official tour as a Malloy “top  adviser ,” according to a Connecticut Post story . Way back in the day when Mr. Malloy seemed to be anxious to reform public school education in the state, most especially in Connecticut’s consistently failing urban schools, Mr. Malloy turned upon teachers resisting his reforms. The newly ensconced governor told the General Assembly on the opening day of their session that “… to earn that tenure -- that job security -- in today's system basically the only th...

The gubernatorial nomination on the Republican side is heavily, if politely, contested. In a few days, Republican nominating delegates will gather at Mohegan Sun Casino to sort out their ticket. On the Democratic side, the gubernatorial slot is a Malloy gimme – almost. State employee union gadfly Jonathan Pelto continues to sting Governor Dannel Malloy. Mr. Malloy’s temperament, like that of President Barack Obama, is sting averse. The Malloyalists who surround him sting back when stung. Both they and their chief have thin skins. And Mr. Malloy, when caught in a compromising position, has been known to throw a few elbows at his critics. In the past, whenever Mr. Pelto had harpooned Mr. Malloy on his blog “ Wait, What? ” gubernatorial factotum Roy Occhiogrosso, who has parleyed his Malloy connection into a Vice Presidential slot with Global Strategy, leapt forward to answer Mr. Pelto with a box on the ear.

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...

What a difference a campaign season makes. It was not so long ago – in March 2012 – that Governor Dannel Malloy was valiantly trying to tamp down efforts among General Assembly progressives to raise the minimum wage in Connecticut to $9.25 an hour from $8.25. A story issued from Rick Green of the Hartford Courant: “ Quassy Stands To Lose If Minimum Wage Rises: Even 50-Cent Hike Could Cost Over $150K, Owner Says .” Mr. Green interviewed a minimum wage employer, George Frantzis of Quassy Amusement Park on Lake Quassapaug in Middlebury, Connecticut, who pointed out that the prospective boost in the minimum wage would force him to take measures. Mr. Frantiz told Mr. Green that a minimum wage increase would force Quassy to “cut back on recently approved plans to expand a water park. There would be fewer raises for returning employees,” not to mention business lost from the absence of a water park.

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.

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s awkward false claim, made or intimated several times , that he had served as a marine in Vietnam rose out of the newspaper morgues recently after former New York Times political writer Ray Hernandez joined a Washington D.C. PR firm. The story in the Hartford Courant, “ NY Times Reporter Who Was Fed Blumenthal Vietnam Scoop Will Join DC Firm Led By One Time McMahon Adviser ”, actually is a story about a story, a story twice removed.

Here is an accurate transcript of a conversation between Dennis House of Face the State and former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley . Mr. Foley hopes to secure the Republican Party’s nomination for governor. Neither Mr. Foley nor Governor Dannel Malloy has as yet formally announced their respective bids for the governor’s office. A great deal of commentary – most of it critical of Mr. Foley’s comments -- already has preceded the posting of a transcript. But it’s always a good idea to put first things first: First the transcript, then the commentary:

Governor Dannel Malloy already has been asked countless times whether he intends to defend his seat in the upcoming 2014 elections, to which impertinent questions he has responded coyly – maybe yes, maybe no. This is the default answer to questions that would prematurely commit the governor to an open and transparent campaign. Republicans considering running for governor have been no less coy. Before he knocked himself off as a possible Republican contender for Mr. Malloy’s seat, Larry Cafero was every bit the Republican gubernatorial tease; Republicans Tom Foley and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney are still fetchingly turning an ankle in the direction of Connecticut’s media: Maybe yes, maybe no.

“I seen my chances, and I took’em” – George Washington Plunkitt Tom Foley, an announced Republican candidate for governor, dropped an anvil on the multi-footed Connecticut centipede, and -- Ouch! A bill written by Mr. Foley and launched by State Senator Joe Markley was, according to a story written by Mark Pazniokas in CTMirror , “ problematic for many members of the part-time state legislature, including a potential GOP rival.”

The Malloyalist tree has lost some leaves along the way as the governor approaches the end of his first term in office. The latest to depart is senior advisor Roy Occhiogrosso, said to be Governor Dannel Malloy’s “ closest confidant.” Mr. Occhiogrosso’s own reaction to his departure was uncharacteristically understated, almost blasé: “I personally think people tend to stay in these jobs too long some times. I had a great time. It's time to do something else." Sometime last January, Mr. Malloy opened the exit door a crack. He told his staff that those who did not want to remain with him as he served out the next two years of his term in office should leave then, but Mr. Occhigrosso agreed to remain for yet another year.

The first shots of the 2014 gubernatorial campaign were fired by Malloyalist pit bull Roy Occhiogrosso and state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo shortly after former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley announced at the end of November his availability for the Republican nomination for governor. Asked by a reporter to comment on Mr. Foley’s early entrance into the gubernatorial arena, Mr. Occhiogrosso sniffed, “We don’t comment on Tom Foley’s political ambitions. He lost one race. He’s more than welcome to lose another.” Ms. DiNardo, coloring within the lines of Mr. Occhiogrosso’s curt dismissal, said in a media release, “Tom Foley just doesn’t get it. Like Mitt Romney, he doesn’t understand the challenges that average hardworking people face. He is just another out-of-touch vulture capitalist who sees the average resident as something less. It’s a toxic world view that the voters of this country rejected just a few weeks ago. And if ambassador Foley runs again, he’ll find...