Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Former senator and governor Lowell Weicker – maverick Republican (i.e. closet Democrat) – once said about his party, “It’s so small. Why doesn’t somebody take it over?” Weicker, assisted by his aide Tom D’Amore, once did attempt to take over the party. Weicker, then a senator, eased D’Amore into the chairmanship of his party and, before you could say Benito Mussolini, the two were conspiring to “open” the party’s nominating conventions to unaffiliated voters. Party central simply refused to decompose on cue and politely rebuffed Weicker. Both Weicker and D’Amore eventually shook the dust of their old, small, inconsequential party from their feet, Weicker to run as governor on a synthetic party ticket. D’Amore drifted off the party reservation, was seen canoodling with Jesse Ventura, and later re-entered Connecticut’s political orbit as an advisor to Ned Lamont, who tried and failed to unhorse Weicker’s old bete noir, Sen. Joe Lieberman. The best that can be said about Connecticut’s mod...

In the end, the difference between the senatorial races in Connecticut and Rhode Island proved to be more important than their similarities. The Rhode Island primary race pitted Republican U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee against conservative opponent Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey; the Connecticut race pitted Democrat U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman against progressive candidate Ned Lamont. The cheering sections for each insurgent were far different. Lamont’s campaign was pushed forward by progressives warming their hands around blog bonfires. Lieberman parted company with the progressive wing of his party – the Democrat Party no longer has a conservative wing – on the issue of the Iraq war when he publicly supported President Bush’s view of the conflict, a posture that aroused the antipathies of progressives at a time when the war was retrogressing. National Republicans – not conservatives; they are not the same thing – formed an important part of Chaffe’s cheering section. Fearing a loss of suppo...