Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Should Chris Healy go as Republican Party Chairman? Who would replace him, Tom D’Amore? Mr. D’Amore, it will be recalled, was anointed Republican Party Chairman by then Sen. Lowell Weicker, who at the time was considered one of the nominal heads of his party. Weicker later tossed aside his rusty foil, the Republican Party, and became an Independent. One of D’Amore’s first proposals as Party Chairman was to open nominating conventions to those not formally registered as Republicans. Had he been successful, Weicker would have been spared the indignity of scrounging for money and influence from a party he abhorred. Republicans at the time were in no mood to commit suicide and spurned D’Amore’s gambit. D’Amore drifted off to assist such independent nobodies as former governor of Minnesota Jesse "The Body" Ventura, once a wrestler, and Ned Lamont, a democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. Weicker himself lost a senatorial race to present Sen. Joe Lieberman and, in his se...

The state Republican Party has been decimated by decades of bad advice proffered by those who do not have the party’s interests in mind. That is why it is a small, negligible party. During the Weicker years, in a moment of rare candor, Weicker was heard to say, “Why doesn’t somebody take it [the state party] over; it’s so small.” To this end, Weicker the maverick managed to convince the Republican state party machinery to appoint his chief aide, Tom D’Amore, as party chairman. D’Amore lately was advising the Ned Lamont campaign in its struggle to unhorse Sen. Joe Lieberman. Ned Lamont, one must suppose, is D’Amore’s idea of a boffo senator; but he is not a Republican, not a moderate and not – no thanks to D’Amore – not a senator. Now, are we permitted to reason from the present back to the past? If D’Amore was comfortable supporting Ned Lamont, have his political preferences changed in any significant respect from the time when he was Republican Party chairman? The truthful answer is ...

With former Governor Tom’s Meskill’s death, an earlier generation of Republicans is passing the torch to a newer generation. Meskill, former Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javitts, also of New York and former Governor Lowell Weicker’s template of the good Republican, were all “moderates,” which means they were inclined to break free of ideological restraints and join forces, when necessary, with liberals on the other side of the political barricades. The AP story on Meskill’s death does not mention his roll and that of his aide, Tom D’Amore, later Republican Party chairman and Weicker’s right hand man, in the institution of a Connecticut state income tax. Legislation creating a state income tax during the Meskill administration was somewhat surreptitiously passed through the legislature, which quickly reconvened and killed the legislation at a raucous midnight session. Much later, Weicker and D’Amore – along with some help from Bill Cibes, who ran for governor and lost ...

U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, according to a lede on a popular Connecticut political blog site , “claims it will be distracting to both run for reelection in his district and not know whether or not he will win the chairmanship. I understand that this is a power play on his part, but it also contributes to the perception that he’s unstable.” The blogger, charitably, does not tell us whether the word “unstable” refers to Shays’ precarious political position or to his state of mind. On the left side of the political barricades, it is not uncommon for disputants to refer to politicians who support President Bush’s maligned “war on terror” as having lost their marbles. Shays thinks it will be terribly tedious to remain in the U.S. House of Representatives if he is not selected for the top GOP spot on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. And so, he has now given notice to national Republican Party power brokers that he just might give up his seat in the House to a deserving Democra...