Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

We all know that young people, most especially urban young people, sometimes stray from profitable paths because they lack proper guidance. There are three reasons why messages to young people are not received: The message may be deficient, the messenger may be unpersuasive or the message itself may fall on parched ground. In mid-May the principal of Harding High School in Bridgeport, the unflappable Victor Black, responded to a request from motivational speaker Wayne Winsley to address his students. His Achievement and Motivation presentation, tucked into a program called “ Brave Enough to Fail” , is one of hope and courage: Strive to discover and nurture in yourself the seeds of promise that lie at the root of your character – and do not be afraid to fail, for the ladder of success is marked by rungs of opportunities disguised as failures.

Linda McMahon may or may not win her campaign to replace Senator Joe Lieberman in the U.S. Congress. Everyone agrees that her race with media favorite Chris Murphy is a close one. Although it is a presidential election year, Barack Obama appears to have lost some of his luster since his last election, his coattails having been clipped by four years in office during which the recovery promised by the president has yet to surface. The latest Gallup poll shows the president trailing Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney by seven points , not a propitious sign. If Mrs. McMahon is elected to the U.S. Senate, her critics in Connecticut – pretty nearly every commentator in the state – will put down her win to dollars spent. In this regard, Mrs. McMahon is the exception in Connecticut.

Prior to her first debate with wannabe U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, Linda McMahon was assiduously avoiding most invitations by editorial boards in Connecticut to step into the lion’s den. This infuriated the lions, always hungry for red meat. If ask why she refused to submit to editorial board interrogatories, Mrs. McMahon might have replied honestly – though honesty is the first casualty of a political campaign – “I’m just tired of   defending WWE,” her former company “from the slings and arrows of outraged left of center editorial board members.” That would have been some sort of a rational answer. Mrs. McMahon, however, is not the only candidate for election skipping class. U.S. Representative for life Rosa DeLauro also has been politely refusing invitations from editorial boards. Indeed, she has been refusing to debate her Republican opponent, Wayne Winsley, an energetic, conservative African American who has been peppering Mrs. DeLauro with rhetorical buckshot. ...