Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Blumenthal sworn into office by Biden in a mock ceremony The leading Democrats scrambling up the presidential campaign greasy pole are former Vice President in the Obama administration Joe Biden, 29 percent in a Quinnipiac poll, followed by Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders, 19 percent in the same poll, both of whom have had past sweet and sour relationships, none of them the subject of congressional hearings,  with communist Russia. President Donald Trump continues to be slammed by Democrats owing to his still alleged warm relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, collusion with the Ruskies having been put in the cooler after the Mueller investigation, but these two… not so much. Biden’s questionable relationship with Ukraine, a country that had in the past locked horns with Russia numerous times – in 1932, Joseph Stalin created a man-made famine to haul Ukraine into the Soviet orbit – recently re-surfaced in a New York Times piece that is certain to catch th...

The media has lost its moral pull. The approval rating of the lowest bottom-feeding politician is several fathoms higher than that of “the media,” according to a September 2016 Gallup Poll . The media, even less than the current Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, simply does not give a hoot about approval polls directed at them, which are worth pausing over none-the-less.

“Character is much easier kept than recovered” – Thomas Paine According to a story appearing in the Waterbury Republican American , “Former state Comptroller Bill Curry, the 1994 and 2002 Democratic nominee for Governor, was even more direct. ‘No one under any cloud of investigation is on any serious list for any appointment in any White House. It simply isn’t worth the enormous political and moral hazard,’ he said. Mr. Curry was a White House adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s husband," former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Curry believes that Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has no chance – zip – of acquiring a position in the administration of future President Hillary Clinton. 

That crunching sound you hear is the fall of the house of Malloy. Governor Dannel Malloy’s disapproval rating at Mid-March was a hefty 68 percent, according to a recent poll published by Quinnipiac College . The low approval rating of 23 percent marks Mr. Malloy, head of the Democratic Governors Association, as the most unpopular governor in the nation, only a few weeks after Mr. Malloy was awarded the Kennedy Center’s Profile in Courage Award. A previous Connecticut Governor, Lowell Weicker, also received the same award shortly after his popularity rating in the state plummeted during his contentious term in office, in the course of which Mr. Weicker had vetoed three non-income tax budgets and finally succeeded in forcing the General Assembly to impose an income tax on a state that once had attracted businesses because it was a low tax, low regulatory Eden.

Just prior to the California primary, a “must win” for socialist Bernie Sanders, the Hillary Clinton campaign pointed out that their beleaguered leader had acquired enough delegates to overcome Mr. Sanders at the upcoming Democratic Party Presidential nominating convention. A headline following the announcement, typical of most, read: “ Clinton secures delegates before last Democratic races ." The message of the Hillary campaign to prospective Sanders supporters just prior to the crucial primaries in six states – CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ and SD – and especially delegate rich California, could not be plainer:  Stay home, the campaign is over . Mrs. Clinton swept California and New Jersey. Following her California win, Mrs. Clinton slathered Bernie supporters with empathy. “I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in and come up short,” she said from her triumphant podium. “I know that feeling well.”

At the cusp of the New Year, lame duck President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union Address. The real state of the union is in disarray, and here in Connecticut many nutmeggers are living lives of quiet desperation: “Dark Clouds, Sunny Speech” ran a page one, top of the fold headline in a Hartford paper. Dark clouds indeed! The national economy continues to under-perform, and some economic tea leaf readers see yet another recessionary bump in the road. Mr. Obama has added $8 trillion to the union’s already unsupportable national debt, quickly approaching $19 trillion.  After two terms of visionary hope and change, the U.S. Congress has fallen to Republicans. Reports of al-Qaida’s demise, loudly trumpeted by Mr. Obama during his second presidential campaign, have been greatly exaggerated. Mr. Obama has turned over to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the butcher of Ukraine, the U.S.’s Middle East portfolio. Libya – the Democrats' Iraq – is under siege by ISIS...

Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report in mid-October was full of portentous headlines: “ Malloy's approval rating at all-time low … Shrug: 'I've never run my life to be popular'... TheDay: Malloy's very bad year... Stevens: Malloy 'toxic'... Record-Journal: Where have Connecticut jobs gone?... ” The single event that precipitated this run of bad news for Governor Dannel Malloy, the most progressive chief executive in Connecticut since Wilber Cross, was  the most recent Quinnipiac University poll .  First elected in 1930, when the progressive era in American politics was in full swing – Yes, Virginia, progressivism is even older than that, though the Cross administration is but a few years older than Bernie Sanders, progressivism’s great white hope for president  -- Mr. Cross abolished child labor and instituted the state’s minimum wage rate. Grateful for superman governors during The Great Depression, Connecticut later would show its appreciation of Mr. Cr...

The charge that by remaining in the gubernatorial race as an independent Joe Visconti may be a spoiler was always a bit fudgy; after all, anyone in a gubernatorial race seeks to spoil the race for his competitors. Republican gubernatorial contender Tom Foley would be quite happy to spoil Governor Dannel Malloy’s gubernatorial bid, and likewise Mr. Malloy is doing his best to spoil Mr. Foley’s reelection chance. The most recent Quinnipiac poll continues to show Mr. Visconti drawing votes equally from both Mr. Foley and Mr. Malloy. However, Mr. Visconti has now seized 16 percent of the independent vote which ought to worry the usually unflappable Mr. Foley.

Most commentators in Connecticut seem to trust the Quinnipiac Poll. The latest Q poll shows Republican gubernatorial challenger Tom Foley leading Governor Dannel Malloy by about six percentage points. The same poll shows Independent gubernatorial challenger Joe Visconti capturing about seven percent of the vote, and that seven percent represents the ants in the pants of Foley supporters who point out that, during the last gubernatorial go-around, Mr. Foley lost to Mr. Malloy by a very thin margin. The Q poll also points out that Mr. Visconti appears to be drawing equally from Republicans and Democrats, so that his effect on the general election would appear to be a wash.

A recent poll – Governor Dannel Malloy has called it, dismissively, a survey – shows Republican gubernatorial prospect Tom Folly leading Mr. Malloy by nine points. The poll by YouGov , a survey firm that has partnered with The New York Times and CBS News, is a bit different than the usual survey.  Unlike the more traditional Quinnipiac poll, YouGov derives its nonpartisan data from an online panel of more than 100,000 respondents nationwide. In Connecticut, the poll shows Republicans favoring Mr. Foley 81-5, while Democrats favor Malloy 72-12. But one of the most alarming takeaways from the poll is Mr. Foley’s 50 to 15 percent lead among Independents .  That gap is huge, and unaffiliated voters in the state outnumber both Republicans and Democrats. These figures should alarm Democrats. Further, the majority of respondents said that they disapprove of Malloy’s performance as Governor.

A Connecticut paper that has never met a tax increase in did not approve breaks the news gently. So gimmicky is Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget that it puts the editorial board in mind of Mr. Malloy’s predecessor, former Governor Jodi Rell, whose budgets – all of them passed by the Democratic dominated General Assembly – relied heavily on such gimmicks as moving red ink into future budgets, excessive borrowing to balance ordinary expenditures, and other sleights of hand that, Mr. Malloy said in his first campaign for governor, were exceedingly dishonest. This year, the paper chides, “Now, pushed into a corner by a lag in tax revenues, Mr. Malloy and the majority Democrats in the General Assembly are using gimmicks of their own in passing what they say is a balanced budget for the fiscal year that begins July .” The post-election year will open with a bang of a deficit -- $1.3 billion or more. That is the amount Mr. Malloy and the Democratic dominated General Asse...

In its first survey of “likely voters,” a Quinnipiac poll shows Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate making inroads upon Chris Murphy, the Democratic U.S. Representative who this year is hoping to fill U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s Independent shoes:   “In today's survey, McMahon's 54 - 42 percent lead among men swamps Murphy's small 50 - 46 percent lead among women. McMahon leads 88 - 10 percent among Republicans and 55 - 40 percent among independent voters, while Murphy takes Democrats 82 - 16 percent.” Mrs. McMahon has always drawn a strong male vote. Having learned important lessons from her loss to now Senator Richard Blumenthal, Mrs. McMahon this time at bat made a vigorous effort to capture women’s votes, and her 15 point lead over Mr. Murphy among Independents must be encouraging to her campaign.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s advertising blitz hasn’t helped much. A recent Quinnipiac University poll puts it this way: “Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd trails former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a likely Republican challenger 48-39 percent in the 2010 Senate race, but he is inching up in his job approval to a negative 42-52 percent approval rating, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.” U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has not poured money into advertising and outreach efforts to salvage support within the Democratic Party after his slide in the polls, is even-steven: The poll shows Lieberman with an approval-disapproval rating of 46-46. Dodd’s rating is 42-52 percent. Dodd's slippage among independents, whose party affections are nil and whose ideology is eclectic, will be crucial in an election. Among independents, Dodd’s approval-disapproval rating is a near fatal 56–27 percent. President Barack Obama’s approval-disapproval rating has fallen below that of Gov. Jodi Rell...

The Associated Press is reporting that Simmons is in: Former Republican Rep. Rob Simmons said Sunday that he plans to run against Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd. Simmons said he made the decision to join the race after talking with relatives. "The family had a long meeting today and was unanimous that I run," he said in an e-mail message to The Associated Press. "So I am running." Perhaps the relatives had shared with Simmons a recent Quinnipiac poll .