Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

For the past eight years of the Barack Obama Presidency, the moderate Democrat, perhaps best represented by the much reviled former Connecticut U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman , has been an endangered political species. Having lost a Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, Mr. Lieberman won in the general election as an Independent, incurring the enmity of progressives whose heads even today explode at the mere mention of his mane. But following the unexpected rise to the Presidency of Donald Trump, the species is making a comeback in the person of U.S. Rep Jim Himes, who has been chosen to lead the New Democrat Coalition , “a group of about 50 Congressional Democrats that calls itself moderate and fiscally responsible,” according to the Hartford Courant . Boastful progressives in Connecticut, hardly a hotbed of progressivism before the advent of Barack Obama, are now fading into the woodwork. Up for re-election in two years, one expects U.S. Senators Chris Murphy to be less...

Like U.S. Senator Chris Dodd before him, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman soon will be leaving the congress with 23 years of service under his belt. Following his leave-taking, Mr. Dodd fell on a plush Hollywood featherbed. Mr. Lieberman’s future is a question mark. His bitterest critics – they are legion – suppose he will worm his way into a lobbyist position in Washington because, as Willy Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, that’s where the money is. Like Senator Dick Blumenthal, who stepped into Mr. Dodd’s congressional shoes, Mr. Lieberman is Jewish, and when his most hot-headed critics wish to strike a death blow, they revert to stereotypical insults: Jews are motivated by money alone; Lieberman’s principal loyalty lies with beleaguered Israel rather than the United States, that sort of thing. Apart from racism, the two oldest and most perduring prejudices in the United States are anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, both of which still have lots of wind in their sails. W...

Hell hath no fury, to vary a well-worn phrase, like a Weicker scorned. Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent The base Injustice thou hast done my Love: Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress, And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd; Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd. William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride , 1697 Once again – a bad habit in former Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker’s case – Mr. Weicker has brought his hobnail boot down upon yet another Republican and   former friend, according to a piece in CageSideSeats (CSS) , “ Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. sticks the boots to former friend Linda McMahon .”

It may be recalled that present Senator Joe Lieberman spanked then Senator Lowell Weicker pretty vigorously during their hard fought campaign way back in 1988 concerning Mr. Weicker’s failure to vote on important issues. One of the most effective ads run by the Lieberman campaign showed Mr. Weicker as a snoozing bear in his cave hibernating while the world about him in the senate was hammering out bills. The ad caught the attention of the New York Times :

Dan Roberti, a Democrat running for the U.S House in Connecticut’s 5th District has called upon Democratic Party nominee Chris Donovan to quit the race. "It is time for Chris Donovan to withdraw from the primary race for the good of the Connecticut Democratic Party and to protect the seat,” Mr. Roberti said following an indictment returned by a Grand Jury of Mr. Donovan’s former campaign director Robert Braddock. “He has hidden behind lawyers and never stepped up to explain how members of his campaign staff could have arranged conduit contributions without his knowledge." Following Mr. Roberti’s invitation to withdraw, Donovan campaign manager Tom Swan declared that Mr. Donovan remains, even after damning disclosures, the strongest Democrat in the race . Mr. Donovan was nominated at the Democratic convention for the 5 th District seat now occupied by U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated when pre...

Both of Connecticut’s U.S. Senators, Joe Lieberman and Dick Blumenthal, would seem to have a great deal in common with besieged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. Lieberman, due to retire from the Senate at the end of his term, clawed his way into the U.S. Senate from his previous position as Connecticut’s Attorney General, as did Mr. Blumenthal. Mr. Holder was cited for contempt by the two senators’ congressional colleagues in the House on Thursday, June 28. The charge brought against Mr. Holder is that the Attorney General has refused to surrender to Congress documentation the Congress has determined it must review to discover what role Mr. Holder’s Justice Department may have played in “Fast and Furious,” a disastrous scheme in which agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, a department under the supervision of Mr. Holder’s Justice Department, facilitated the purchase of guns by Mexican drug dealers. One of the guns, it was later determined, was use...