Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Seniority equals clout in the U.S. Congress. New senators and congressmen entering the portals of the U.S. Capitol are expected to be seen and not heard for their first year in office. Both Connecticut’s U.S. Senators are new arrivals. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who appears to be having a problem shedding his past as Connecticut’s Attorney General and the state’s chief consumer advocate, has passed his first year blinking as the world slid by. After a couple of years in the Senate, he may now be prepared to open his beak and sing a song. Political watchers in Connecticut are hoping the melody will not be freighted with bills he wished he had been able to enact as attorney general. Connecticut’s senior senator, now that both Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd have left the premises, has not favored his favorite newspapers back in Connecticut with his exhaustive opinions on a raft of recent nettlesome issues, including the destruction of the U.S. embassy in Benghazi and the...