Democrats Demagogue Boughton

“The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning”-- Adlai Stevenson

In her most recent press release, one can almost see state Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo ticking off the “made in Washington” campaign talking points:

Boughton, “war on women,” check.

Boughton,” anti-gay,” check.

Boughton, “Tea Party,” check.

Boughton, “extremist,” check.

A busy demagogue, Ms. DiNardo usually is able to mold her mud pies into brief media bites at a moment’s notice. Here is the core of her media release:

“Mark Boughton needs to let Connecticut know why he is so close to such a dangerous extremist and if he agrees with Senator McLachlan’s agenda. Does Mark Boughton want to force ultrasounds on pregnant women? Does he support McLachlan’s anti-gay views and Tea Party agenda?”

The “dangerous extremist” whom Mr. Boughton is “close to” would be State Senator Mike McLachlan. Apparently, in Ms. DiNardo’s world, extremism is catchy, like the flu. One has only to be “close to” a retrograde senator like Mr. McLachlan to be infected with the affliction of extremism. 

In current Democratic demagoguery, “an extremist” is anyone whose positions on a narrow range of “social issues” do not correspond with those of Ms. DiNardo and other seeming “moderate” social engineers who want to change the nature of marriage, economics, constitutional prescriptions, religious prescriptions and the always delicate balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government in the United States.

The Democratic Party in Connecticut has over the past couple of years abolished the death penalty for multiple murderers shortly after two vicious murderers, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, had slaughtered the Petit family in Cheshire, and only a few months before Adam Lanza had murdered his mother, six faculty members and twenty school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Mr. Lanza committed suicide upon the arrival at the school of first responders but, had he been taken alive, Mr. Lanza could not have been executed for mass murder in Connecticut, thanks to a bill produced in the General Assembly that ended capital punishment for all future felony murders, however horrific.

Republicans voted against abolition. Democrats, in voting for abolition, flouted their seeming high minded courage by exempting from their abolition bill the ten convicted murderers awaiting execution on death row. This exemption, a clear violation of the “natural law” underpinning all jurisprudence – which holds that in the absence of a proscriptive law there can be no punishment – is likely to be found unconstitutional by any appellate judge who has a nodding acquaintance with the Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution. It would have been politically inconvenient at the time for Democrats to reverse so many very expensive court decisions relating to the “Death Row 10.” The abolition measure, universally embraced by Democrats, we are to assume, is neither a “social issue” nor is it dangerous to the public weal. But Mr. McLaughlin IS a dangerous extremist and must be publicly shamed and demagogued by “non-extremist” Democrats who voted to abolish the death penalty for cop killers, terrorists and mass murderers.

All laws affect society, and there is not a piece of legislation created by any legislative body in the United States in the last 238 years that has no social repercussions. The term “social issue,” especially when employed in campaigns by demagogic partisans, is a false category.

Really, one wonders how many of Mr. McLachlan’s Democratic colleagues in the General Assembly – law makers all, artificers of social legislation -- feel comfortable with Ms. DiNardo’s estimation of him as a “dangerous extremist?” Has anyone taken a poll?

Do Democrats in the General Assembly who find themselves in agreement with Ms. DiNardo’s demagogic assessment of Mr. McLaughlin believe that the Senator’s imperfections have been transferred to Mr. Boughton through a process of osmosis? If Mr. Boughton has been tainted by his proximity to Mr. McLaughlin, what of the members of the General Assembly who were “close” to Mr. McLaughin as they toiled together in the same body to hammer out various laws? Will the pox that has spread so rapidly from Mr. McLaughlin to Mr. Boughton through mere association also affect General Assembly Democrats who worked cheek by jowl with Mr. McLaughlin? Have Governor Dannel Malloy and leading members of the General Assembly been polluted by their close proximity to former Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, some of whose political associates have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison?

This is mud-slinging of a high order. Why, if Mrs. DiNardo could order up capital punishment for Tea Party members in her state, her rhetoric suggests she might go for it. But her party has abolished capital punishment for mass murderers, and it would be politically indelicate to send to the death chamber what one Tea Party organizer called “Governor Dannel Malloy’s neighbors” after having abolished capital punishment for Connecticut’s future Lanzas.

Democratic Demagoguery in Connecticut

The first shots of the 2014 gubernatorial campaign were fired by Malloyalist pit bull Roy Occhiogrosso and state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo shortly after former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley announced at the end of November his availability for the Republican nomination for governor.

Asked by a reporter to comment on Mr. Foley’s early entrance into the gubernatorial arena, Mr. Occhiogrosso sniffed, “We don’t comment on Tom Foley’s political ambitions. He lost one race. He’s more than welcome to lose another.”

Ms. DiNardo, coloring within the lines of Mr. Occhiogrosso’s curt dismissal, said in a media release, “Tom Foley just doesn’t get it. Like Mitt Romney, he doesn’t understand the challenges that average hardworking people face. He is just another out-of-touch vulture capitalist who sees the average resident as something less. It’s a toxic world view that the voters of this country rejected just a few weeks ago. And if ambassador Foley runs again, he’ll find out exactly what the voters of Connecticut think of his economic philosophy.”

Mr. Foley lost the governor’s race to Mr. Malloy in 2010, owing to the additional votes Mr. Malloy was able to garner while appearing on the “Working Families Party” line. In a recent suit decided by Connecticut’s Supreme Court, the court awarded the Republican Party the top line on the ballot in the recently concluded elections because Mr. Foley had received more votes on the Republican Party line than did Mr. Malloy on the Democratic Party line. The race was exceedingly close. Charges during the race that Mr. Foley was a “vulture capitalist,” as Mrs. DiNardo toxically puts it, did not appear to do much damage to Mr. Foley’s prospects, who lost to Mr. Malloy by a slender 6,400 vote margin. Democrats in Connecticut outnumber Republicans roughly by a ratio of two to one.

Other Republicans who have shown interest in running against Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy are perhaps, to Mrs. DiNardo’s way of thinking, less “out of touch’ in the toxic world of Connecticut politicking.

Both the Republican House and Senate leaders in the General Assembly, Senator John McKinney and House leader Larry Cafero, as well as Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, have signaled their interests in running for governor, and all have considerably more direct experience in issues affecting the state than Ms. DiNardo and Mr. Occhiogrosso might wish.

The knock on Linda McMahon, when she ran twice for the U.S. Senate, was that she had little direct experience in politics, was redundantly wealthy, and made her millions in a way that caused some in the media to wrinkle their noses with displeasure. True, soon to be Senior Senator from Connecticut Dick Blumenthal and U.S. House fixture Rosa DeLauro are also millionaires, Mr. Blumenthal having been fortunate enough to marry a woman whose father owns the Empire State Building in New York and some few other valuable properties, and Mrs. DeLauro having had the luck to marry pollster to the Democratic stars Stan Greenberg.

Of the six richest U.S. Senators, only one is a Republican. John Kerry of Massachusetts, reported to be under consideration for departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s position, is number one, weighing in with a net worth of $238,812,296; Mr. Blumenthal is number six, with assets amounting to $94,870,116.

Great wealth is not necessarily a bar to politicians who, ideally, serve all the people all the time. Franklin Roosevelt, after all, did not sell apples for pennies on a street corner, and George Washington, father of the early Republic, a capitalist enterprise, is still the richest man to have held presidential office. But even Mrs. DiNardo, if one could catch her in an honest non-political mood, might be forced to admit that the life styles of both Mr. McKinney and Mr. Cafero are more representative of the middle class than that of Mr. Blumenthal, who lives in a million dollar estate in toney Greenwich, as does Mrs. McMahon.

We see the future through a glass darkly, but none of it looks promising. Like California, Connecticut is broke and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Both Mr. Malloy and Mr. Obama continue in their crony capitalist ways – transferring huge gobs of tax money not to the poor but to bribable large corporations – and demagoguery will only get you so far.

Mr. Foley is supposed to be out of touch with the usual Democratic constituency because he used the expression “little people” to condemn the seeming indifference of the party of the little people to the common man.

In an attempt to balance a chronically unbalanced budget,Mr. Foley told a TV news reporter, the governor was pulling the plug on needed services: “Now they're hurting the little people in the state: Alzheimer’s funding, the children's fund, the disabled, vets. They're stepping on the brake and hitting the accelerator at the same time.”

Here is an Obama voter, a 57-year-old African-American salesman in Calera, Ala., formerly a Republican, accounting for his switch: “Democrats stand for little people, regular people, common people like myself. My daddy was a Republican because Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, but the Republican Party changed and started being for people who had money.” And here is Democratic Party hero Andrew Cuomo, mayor of the Big Apple, hoisting his flag for the little people: "We're going to do all the hard things. We're going to bite the bullet. And we're going to do the courageous thing without punishing little people or exploiting the rich people."

Even within Democratic Party ranks, the expression “little people” is a synonym for “common people.” In rhetorical demonology, the expression’s antonym is – guess what? – “the rich.” One would think the head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut and Mr. Malloy’s chief flack catcher and demonologist-in chief would know all this; but then purposeful ignorance in pursuit of election victories is no vice for such as Ms. DiNardo and Mr. Occhiogrosso . 

Newton Reinvented

In the good old days, before the advent of campaign finance reform, a stretch in prison was no bar to election. Mayor Michael Curley of Boston, a colorful mob-connected figure in Massachusetts politics who made good on his campaign pledge to get the washerwomen of the city off their knees, ran the city from prison. Mr. Curley later rigged out all the washerwomen of Boston with long handled mops.

It may well be the case that a stretch in jail was the booster that rocketed Mr. Curley into a long and eventful career in politics.

Mr. Curley received news that he had been elected to Boston’s Board of Alderman in 1904 while cooling his heels in prison on a fraud conviction: He had fraudulently taken a civil service exam for two men applying for postmen in his district, and the stint in prison helped to burnish his reputation among the poor Irish of Boston as someone who was willing to go to the mat for those in need. During his career in politics, both as Boston Mayor and a U.S. Senator serving in the Congress from 1943 ton 1947, it was not uncommon for the city’s poor and unemployed Irish to line up outside his house in the mornings to speak with him about getting a job or to get a handout of a few dollars to see them through the week.

Running for the Congress against blue-blooded Tom Eliot, the son of a Unitarian minister, grandson of Harvard president Charles Eliot and a former New Deal attorney of sterling reputation backed by Franklin Roosevelt, Mr. Curley anchored his campaign in unvarnished appeals to ethnic, class and religious bigotry, shaking the communist spook stick against the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Yankee Eliot: “There is more Americanism in one half of Jim Curley's ass than in that pink body of Tom Eliot." Having won a spot in Congress, Mr. Curley proceeded to compile a voting record in support of the Roosevelt administration that was the envy of New Deal pinkoes everywhere.

Mr. Curley’s long political career ended in 1951 when he suffered an erosion of electoral support. Following his death, two statues honoring Mr. Curley appeared in Faneuil Hall; a bar called “The Purple Shamrock,” one of the mayor’s symbols, popped out of the ground nearby; his house, known during his time as “the house with the shamrock shutters,” became an historical site; and he was immortalized in the film “the Last Hurrah” as the protagonist, Frank Skeffington. Disappointed with the film, Mr. Curley, a shameless self-promoter but always the best guardian of his own reputation, initially threatened to bring legal action against Edwin O’Connor, the author of the novel, but on reflection thought better of it, telling Mr. O’Connor that he most enjoyed “the part where I die.”

Somewhere in Bridgeport, where the old-guard Democratic Party structure still lives and breathes, there may in the future be a spot for a couple of Ernie Newton statues.

An ex-felon and ex-State Senator from Bridgeport, Mr. Newtonsurprised Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo when he won the endorsement of the Democratic nominating convention for the 23rd State Senate District, which comprises 75 percent of Bridgeport and a bit of Stratford.

"I have to say I am surprised," Ms. DiNardo said, adding when asked by a reporter if she would discourage voters from returningMr. Newton to the General Assembly, “I think that's up to that district to make that decision, not me."

Governor Dannel Malloy, known for having in the past actively participated in the campaigns of Democrats formally nominated by his party, appeared to be consulting a similar script.

When queried by Hartford Courant reporter Jon Lender, Mr. Malloy characterized the race in Bridgeport as “local issue, first and foremost.” He urged voters in Bridgeport to “take into consideration all of the abilities of the people that they have to choose from. It looks like there may three names on the ballot. And so I think the people of Bridgeport have a decision to make. I have to say to you that I’ve long been an advocate of a second-chance society. As a prosecutor, as a governor, as a mayor I’ve advocated for second chances. But ultimately in the political arena that’s a decision for the public to make… I think the public has a balancing act. They have to decide whether … the person has paid a sufficient price, whether they’ve expressed sufficient remorse, whether they have the skill set necessary to do the job. … That’s why we have elections, and I would urge all the voters to vote.”

Mr. Newton offered a much abbreviated concision of the governor’s remarks: "The governor said, `It's the people's decision.’”

Mr. Newton launched into a defense of his record in office, minus the four years he passed in prison for having solicited a $5,000, one of three felonies he was convicted of in 2005: "Felons are people too. They can't say anything about my record in the House or Senate. It was impeccable. If people truly are forgiving, you judge a man on his work ... I paid my debt to society. I ought to be a free man to do whatever it is I want to do with my life."

He told a reporter, “Listen, I still got friends in Hartford.” His Democratic comrades in the legislature “know the (legislative) process. I'm a team player. I know how to get things done." Surely, fellow Democrats in the General Assembly and the governor’s office understand the important role Bridgeport had played in statewide elections. After all, Mr. Newton stressed, the city helped Mr. Malloy, the former mayor of Stamford, win a slim victory in 2010.

"The governor needs to get re-elected, and he's going to need my help to do it," said Mr. Newton, according to a CTPost report.

Apparently, the governor, the titular head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, and Ms. DiNardo, the nominal head of the party, have for the moment taken a hand’s off approach to what may well be Mr. Newton’s “Last Hurrah.” Maybe they saw the movie.

Nancy DiNardo’s History Lesson

"The Democrats,” new Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola said after he had been installed by party central, “have created a record like no other I've seen since the enactment of the income tax in 1991. Our job is to highlight the contrasts between the Republican Party, which is the party of the private sector, the party of growth and opportunity, contrasted with the Democratic Party, the party of government unions, oppressive taxation and absolutely no job growth in Connecticut over nearly a generation."

Republicans, Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo responded, were attempting to shift responsibility for the state's fiscal mess: "Let's just ignore the fact that we've had a Republican governor for 20 years. Clearly, the voters of Connecticut are not fooled by the Republican rhetoric. The Republican Party has tried to cater to extreme interest groups and is out of step with the residents of Connecticut.”

Mr. Labriola did not answer that it was refreshing to hear Ms. DiNardo admit – if only indirectly and perhaps for the first time in her long tenure as Democratic Party chairwoman – that Democrats, a majority in the General Assembly for more years than Mr. Labriola could remember, were at all responsible for the current mess. Most non-partisans, both in state and nationally, would agree with the timeworn adage that governors propose while legislatures dispose.

Two Republican governors, beginning with Governor John Rowland’s tenure in 1995, have sent budgets to the General Assembly, which then adjusted the budgets according to their lights and sought approval from the governor, who either vetoed the budgets or signed them. That is the way budgets always have been passed in Connecticut.

Additionally, Ms. DiNardo perhaps misspoke when she said “… we’ve had a Republican governor for 20 years,” a span of time that would include as a “Republican” former Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of the state’s income tax. Mr. Weicker ran for governor as an Independent, governed the state as an Independent, as an Independent installed the state’s income tax, with invaluable help from Democratic legislators, and was not, as he himself pointed out in his auto-biography, “Maverick,” comfortable with his own party, a unease shared by most Republicans.

Mr. Weicker, who discounted in his campaign an income tax as a solution to the state’s debt crisis, defeated the Republican candidate, John Rowland, who garnered 37 percent of the vote to Mr. Weicker’s 40 percent; the Democratic candidate for governor, Bruce Morrison, received 21 percent, which indicates that Mr. Weicker received a large amount of his support from Ms. DiNardo’s party.


But all this is ancient history, and revisionists will always quarrel with the solid facts of history. Governor Dannel Malloy’s election is much more recent. His failed budget proposal is more recent still.

There are no Republican fingerprints on the wholly Democratic budget that recently came to grief after it had been rejected by state union workers. And the Republican Party in Connecticut has never been in the grip of “extreme interest groups.” Indeed, some argue that the old Connecticut GOP, the party that has over the years excited such amiability in left of center Democrats such as Ms. DiNardo and others, did not survive because it simply surrendered its character to Democrats.

Mr. Labriola brushed up against the point when he began to draw distinctions between Republicans and Democrats in his remarks: Democrats are “the party of government unions, oppressive taxation and absolutely no job growth in Connecticut over nearly a generation,” while Republicans are “the party of the private sector, the party of growth and opportunity.”

Those few lines went down Ms. DiNardo’s throat like a porcupine with its quills extended – because they actually mean something. She then did what revolutionary leftists usually do when their revolutionary programs, once put in to play, begin to sink the ship: She accused those bailing out the water of “extremism,” a favorite ploy of New York Senator Charles Schumer, who was caught in what he thought was a private phone call to leading Democrats explaining that he always attempts to cripple the opposition by labeling Republican solutions “extreme.”

Those few lines went down Ms. DiNardo’s throat like a porcupine with its quills extended – because they actually mean something. She then did what revolutionary leftists usually do when their revolutionary programs, once put in to play, begin to sink the ship: She accused those bailing out the water of “extremism,” a favorite ploy of New York Senator Charles Schumer, who was caught in what he thought was a private phone call to leading Democrats explaining that he always attempts to cripple the opposition by labeling Republican solutions “extreme.”

Nationally, Democrats, under the leadership of President Barack Obama and political strategists such as Mr. Schumer, declined to approve their budget, produced by a veto-proof majority in the U.S. Congress. At home in Connecticut, Mr. Malloy’s budget has been shot down in flames by state union workers, not minority Republicans in the General Assembly who were shut out of budget negotiations by Mr. Malloy, Democratic leaders in the General Assembly and union negotiators.

Crippled and stumbling into the long Fourth of July weekend, left of center Democrats, moderate Republicans and Independents in the state picked up their papers on July 1 and were met with the astounding news that the Democratic dominated General Assembly, surrendering its constitutional budget making roll in this the constitution state, had given Mr. Malloy extraordinary rescission powers to bring into balance a budget approved by the legislature weeks before it was torpedoed by state union workers. Mr. Malloy’s most modest savings proposal, a plan to eliminate union longevity payments, was rejected by union bought leaders in the General Assembly such as House Speaker Chris Donovan.

No, said Mr. Donovan, “We’re not going to bring it up here today.”

These extreme measures are not likely to be noted by Ms. DiNardo. Why should “the party of government unions, oppressive taxation and absolutely no job growth in Connecticut over nearly a generation,” seldom rebuffed by voters, be expected to surrender their thus far extreme revolutionary ways?

The Real Budget Deal

Fresh from the Democratic Party’s web site, here is Democratic Party chieftain Nancy DiNardo’s reaction to the budget deal that Gov. Dannel Malloy wrested from union representatives:

“Thank you to Governor Malloy, Lt. Governor Wyman, the state employees, and the Democratic leadership in the Assembly for this major accomplishment. This is a critical first step, and there is more work to do, but this is definitely a good day for Connecticut taxpayers. This is what shared sacrifice and real leadership looks like.” - Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo

Though particulars of the deal were not revealed during the weeks of closed door negotiations, a broad outline of the Malloy administration-union deal, according to news reports, involved a union give back of $1.6 billion, $400 million short of Mr. Malloy’s earlier stated goal of $2 billion in the biennium budget. The savings shortfall is to be recovered from resources other than tax increases, according to the governor’s office.

Tucked into the present budget is a surplus of $1 billion that may be deposited in the state’s depleted “rainy day” fund or spent to finance a $900 million improvement of the state’s newest dollar-swallowing White Elephant, the University of Connecticut Health Center, or some other state financial “need” that will arise in the near future. Political columnist George Will defines a “need” as “a want that’s more than 24 hours old.” Needs of this kind have driven Connecticut to the brink of bankruptcy, and the state’s new one party infrastructure will not lessen its neediness.

Mr. Malloy intends to liquidate the greater part of Connecticut’s red ink, the largest per capita deficit in the nation, through a $ 1.4 billion tax increase that Mrs. DiNardo feels is “good for taxpayers.” The Democratic budget – no Republicans in the General Assembly were permitted to adjust it, or even breathe upon it – is the first entirely partisan budget that has seen the light of day in decades. This fiscal term, the Democrats control both the governor’s office and the General Assembly by a margin that renders collegiality among different Party members unnecessary.

Deferring to unions, the governor approved a four year “no lay off” clause that would be irrevocable even if, in future days, the red ink were to rise to cover Mrs. DiNardo’s ankles. The governor also extended the union agreement an additional five years. Unions leaders agreed to forgo raises for two years, after which salaries will increase at 3 percent for three years. Dreaded lay offs were removed from the bargaining table, and the governor considerably narrowed union give backs when, even before serious negotiations had begun, he steadfastly resolved to maintain the state’s obligations to municipalities, effectively removing the need for “shared sacrifice” at the town level -- all in all not a bad deal for the unions.

Before the doors were bolted shut on negotiations, Mr. Malloy suggested that union leaders and Democratic members of the General Assembly should quickly accept his proposal and lay on him the expected political blame arising from taxpayer and union dissatisfaction.

The Democratic budget raised taxes at a time when the governors of contiguous states had forwarded budgets that raised no taxes. Connecticut’s Democratic budget doubles the corporate surcharge during the nation’s deepest and most prolonged recession in many years, when many businesses – as opposed to the unsinkable CEOs of some of “too large to fail” businesses – are suffering rising costs and business slowdowns.

In Massachusetts, once derided in Connecticut as Taxachussetts, the Democratic legislature attacked collective bargaining, one of the more aggressive escalators of governmental costs. Republican leader John McKinney referred obliquely to the Massachusetts miracle in his senate response to the partisan Democratic budget when he said that Connecticut’s sister state had done things that “would be unthinkable” in the Democratic dominated General Assembly.

In a story in CTMirror, Mark Pazniokas was one of the few reporters in the state who noted that Mr. Malloy this year had an infrequent opportunity to drive down the costs of union contracts that would not occur again until 2017, “three years after the next gubernatorial election,’ when current union contracts on pension and health benefits expired.

Gubernatorial leverage in union negotiations, in other words, is limited by the date of expiration on union contracts, an arrangement that gives unions an inestimable edge in negotiations with elected representatives in the state that unions would doubtless prefer to maintain, for it prevents governors and legislators from pressuring unions to make deals that Mrs. DiNardo, the head of the Democratic Party, amusingly considers a boon to taxpayers. There is no movement afoot in Connecticut’s new one party state to redress this costly imbalance; neither will union reliant Democrats challenge binding arbitration

Dean vs. Courant

The Hartford Courant, where ink stained wretch Colin McEnroe parks his pen mightier than the sword, spiked his Sunday column on Martha Dean.

McEnroe understands completely. The Courant bars opinion pieces that appear after the first Sunday before an election, mostly for reasons of fairness. A target of an opinion printed a mere two days before election, in this case Dean, would not have sufficient time to answer any manifestly unjust criticisms within such a short time frame.

While McEnroe missed the bell, other political writers at the Courant, not one of whom has during the entire campaign written a commentary that might be considered favorable to Dean, were not so unfortunate, and there are some, Dean among them, who have reason to suspect that all opinions pouring fourth from the Courant concerning Dean are manifestly partisan.

In any case, McEnroe’s column very likely would have been redundant: The Courant already had endorsed Dean’s opponent, George Jepsen, and launched a broadside against a matter of some moment: A few days ago, after the Supreme Court had issued its written opinion on Susan Bysiewicz’s eligibility for the office of attorney general, Dean had filed a motion with the court contesting the eligibility of Jepsen.

Before I proceed, I must insert here a brief confession. I have written columns and blogs myself protesting the Bysiewicz decision. Connecticut’s Supreme Court may have been wrong when it ruled in the Bysiewicz case that a statute requiring prospective attorneys general to be an "attorney at law of at least ten years' active practice at the bar of this state" trumps the state constitution itself, which provides only an age qualification for the position. But the court has ruled, and that’s that.

The court in its recently published decision interpreted the statute, which specifies that prospective attorneys general must be “attorneys at law of at least ten years active practice at the bar of this state,” as indicating that the attorneys mentioned in the statute should be attorneys “with at least some experience litigating cases in court.” This line of interpretation alone is unclear on two points: The decision does not tell us how much experience is “some” nor what kind of experience would qualify a lawyer to be attorney general. The Bysiewicz ruling is fuzzy around the edges and soft in the middle – which means, the court and Connecticut could only benefit by yet another suit forcing it to clarify the inherent ambiguities in its decision.

Such a suit is precisely the one brought by Dean. And for that reason the suit should have been welcomed by all friends of justice who think laws and Supreme Court rulings should be general, clear and fair. The Hartford Courant, to judge by its editorial reproving Dean for bringing the suit, falls outside this category.

“Ms. Dean says Mr. Jepsen lacks experience as a litigator. She has asked that his name be removed from the ballot and that the secretary of the state be prohibited from certifying the attorney general's race until her lawsuit is resolved.” The editorial, printed four days before election and therefore within its own parameters, asks “Does she [Dean] have a case or is her lawsuit a desperate 11th-hour stunt?” And the paper, much before a decision is due from the court, precipitately decides that the suit is an 11th hour stunt.

McEnroe, incidentally, disagreed with the obiter dictum of his paper in an earlier blog post, placing much of the blame for Dean’s “precipitous” suit on the court: “I agree, by the way, that much of the fault lies with the Connecticut Supreme Court. The Court ruled from the bench in May in the case of Bysiewicz v. Dinardo. Then it waited an inexplicable five months to issue a full decision, which finally came Oct. 22, less than two weeks before the election. Come on, guys, get your homework in on time! The decision itself was so muddy as to make it at least understandable that Dean saw it as a potential wedge to game into Jepsen's candidacy.”

The paper raises two easily answered objections: 1) Dean was precipitate in bringing the suit so close to the election (see McEnroe above); 2) By so doing she has revealed herself as being motivated principally by politics.

It is impossible to shake this last charge. Both Dean and Jepsen are engaged in a political campaign, and it is at least reasonable to suppose that politicians so engaged do things for political reasons – in addition to other perhaps more compelling reasons. But the question opinion makers should be considering is not “Do politicians do things for political reasons,” but rather, “Is Dean’s suit necessary?

It is.

Is Obama A Liability?

President Barack Obama is due in Connecticut on September 16th in Stamford to raise money for U.S. Senate candidate-State Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, and Mr. Blumenthal’s office has just released a media report that the attorney general-U.S. Senate candidate will show up for the event.

Mr. Blumenthal’s statement is straightforward enough. Over a twenty year period, citizens of the state have come to expect straight-talk from Attorney General Blumenthal:

“I look forward to welcoming the President of the United States to Connecticut. It is an honor to have his support and his assistance. His visit will make a difference for us, energizing our supporters and helping us raise the resources we need against my opponent who is spending an unprecedented $50 million on her campaign.”

A carefully crafted caveat was delivered by Blumenthal spokesman Marla Romash: “Dick has always said when he agrees with the President he’ll stand with him and when he doesn’t he won’t … The bottom line here is the most important thing for Dick has always been and always will be what’s best for Connecticut.”

And what’s best for Connecticut are dollars for Dick.

The Linda McMahon campaign, rather hoping to pin Blumenthal to Obama’s increasingly truncated coattails, issued its own caveat through press spokesman Ed Patru:

“Dick Blumenthal is just another politician. He hasn’t been honest about special interest money, and he supported a partisan assault on health care that was put together behind closed doors and now is costing us all. He supports the President’s national energy tax, and he supports higher taxes on Connecticut’s small businesses. We are not going to get our economy growing again by electing more politicians who don’t get it. More of the same is just not good enough.”

Earlier in the week, former Chairman of the Democratic Party John Droney, an old time political pugilist, was asked by Dennis House on “Face the State” whether he thought it was a good idea to invite Obama to Connecticut to campaign for Democrats. With refreshing honesty, Mr. Droney -- subbing on the program for the party’s semi-invisible chairwoman Nancy DiNardo – replied he did not think that would be helpful. Using Mr. Obama as a dollar magnet for Democratic candidates was, on the other hand, a horse of a different color.

There was a day when Mr. Obama could be relied upon to sent a chill up the leg of Chris Mathews, the formidable host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” but this was during a campaign in which Mr. Obama, glancing nervously over his shoulder at Hillary Clinton, steered his ship towards a more moderate center, except on some few vote churning issues such as bringing troops home from the war in Iraq by the Spring of 2008, closing down GITMO weeks into his presidency and promising to devote quality time in the oval office to bringing in Osama bin Ladin -- dead or alive.

Since having been elected president, the national economy, perversely refusing to respond to Mr. Obama’s stimulus packages, continues to steam, full speed ahead, towards economic sand bars; the nation’s Gross National Product is heading for the cemetery; GITMO is still open for business; the war in Afghanistan, a collection of tribes sometime called the “graveyard of empires,” is proceeding apace; terrorists whose names no one can pronounce are being tried in military courts; the post-terrorist security apparatus in the United States continues to threaten the liberties of non-terrorist citizens; the trial in New York city of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11, has been derailed; Iran’s nuclear machinery, fine tuned both by China and Russia, will soon be fully functioning; the Democratic controlled U.S. Congress has passed, over the strenuous objections of minority Republicans, two massive spending programs; the Frankensteinian Dodd-Frank bill regulates many untidy corners of the economy but leaves Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the chief culprits of the Bush era economic collapse, unmarred by the Dodd-Frank regulatory deep sea squid.

Mr. Droney, and some few other concerned centrist Democrats, are necessarily queasy about all this.

The good news is that while perambulating around Waterbury (unemployment rate 14.4 percent), New Britain (13 percent) and Torrington (11 percent), knocking on doors and talking to non-millionaires in Connecticut’s 5th District, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy has discovered “anecdotal signs” that the economy is recovering and that the Obama’s stimulus, “an appropriate blend of tax cuts and stimulus spending,” part of a larger vision in his party’s recovery strategy, has worked its magic.


Mr. Murphy’s Republican opponent, Sam Caliguiri, cool to Mr. Murphy’s anecdotal evidence, is convinced that his opponent, unable to read the signs of the times, has kissed reality goodbye.

While Mr. Murphy has not asked the president to campaign for him, he told the Housatonic Times, “I’d welcome him to come to Connecticut. It would be a great opportunity to focus national attention on the challenges people are facing in this tough economy.”

Republicans are likely to agree.

Another Embarrasing Video

A clip, courtesy of News Channel 8, shows a mano e mano between Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo and Merrick Alpert, who met unarmed in a Hallway to discuss democracy.