A Bridge Too Far, Senator Christie?

There are, believe it or not, Republicans in Northern Connecticut. Like Republicans in the rest of the state, they remain closeted, and their voting influence in Connecticut is negligible – except in urban areas, where it is non-existent. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by a ratio of two to one; in the cities, the ratio is two to zero.

But every so often, a closeted Republican gets his hackles up over some manifest indignity, and such was the case early in the New Year, after Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie permitted one of his staffers to drop him metaphorically off the George Washington Bridge.

In “Speak Out,” a regular feature of The Rockville Reminder, Connecticut Commentary finds this:

“Could someone bring me up to speed on this Chris Christie bridge scandal? Did he drive off one with a girl in his car who was not his wife and leave her to drown, making absolutely no attempt whatsoever to save her life? Why did he [Mr. Christie] take full responsibility? Why didn’t he just say, ‘I knew nothing about this, until I read about it in the newspaper? Then the mainstream media would declare it a ‘non-story,’ and we could all just forget about it, pretend it never happened and move on.”

Perhaps the take-away from “Kopechnegate” is that torpedoes that sink presidential ambitions are of little use in senatorial campaigns. It may be possible to convince Northeast Republicans – who begin to wonder whether ANY Republican in the Northeast can wage a successful presidential campaign – that the U.S. Senate could use yet another fiscally conservative, socially moderate, Eastern Seaboard politician – and the title “Senator Christie, Lion Of The Senate” has a neat ring to it. Mr. Christie, as others have noted, IS capable of roaring.

Perhaps the take-away from “Kopechnegate” is that torpedoes that sink presidential ambitions are of little use in senatorial campaigns. It may be possible to convince Northeast Republicans – who begin to wonder whether ANY Republican in the Northeast can wage a successful presidential campaign – that the U.S. Senate could use yet another fiscally conservative, socially moderate, Eastern Seaboard politician – and the title “Senator Christie, Lion Of The Senate” has a neat ring to it. Mr. Christie, as others have noted, IS capable of roaring.

The hidden reference, of course, is to the late Senator of Massachusetts Edward Kennedy, the “Lion of the Senate” who quitted this veil of tears in 2009, after having roared in that body for 47 years. At his funeral, Mr. Kennedy was given a splendid launch towards the Pearly Gates by his Democratic confreres in the Senate, and former U.S. Republican Senator Lowell Weicker.

According to most accounts, Mr. Kennedy, following the accident, had returned to the party he and Ms. Kopechene attended, passing several houses and a fire station along the way. He then returned to Dyke Bridge with two friends who had advised him that he was required by law to report the accident. Thereafter, Mr. Kennedy, no doubt tuckered out from his ordeal, made his way to a hotel, called his lawyer and went to sleep. An autopsy on the body of Ms. Kopechne was not permitted by her family, but the diver who pulled her body from the submerged car later said, according to multiple reports , that Ms. Kopechne “had positioned herself near the back seat wheel well where an air pocket had formed, and had apparently suffocated rather than drowned” – which means that Ms. Kopechne’s life might have been saved had Mr. Kennedy summoned help immediately from houses close to the scene of the accident.

The sons and daughters of Camelot would do well to take up the anonymous Rockville Reminder correspondent on one important point. We have it from then U.S. Senator Kennedy that the Senator DID make repeated attempts to save the drowning Mary Jo Kopechne (born 1940, drowned 1969). 

It is generally acknowledged that the preventable drowning in Poucha Pond put an end to Mr. Kennedy’s presidential ambitions, but the incident at Dyke Bridge did not interfere with Mr. Kennedy’s senatorial ambitions.

The “t’s” have not yet been crossed, nor the “i’s” dotted, on what is being called “Christiegate.”

Seasoned political watchers are skeptical that Mr. Christie’s defense will hold up under scrutiny. Mr. Christie has said he was unaware of his team’s effort to punish a Democratic mayor who did not enthusiastically embrace his campaign by causing an unnecessary traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge. Doubtful political commentators await the uncovering of a “smoking gun” e-mail that will tie the “Christiegate” can to his tail.

But should Mr. Christie’s presidential ambitions fall to an e-mail tying him to Christiegate, even then all may not be lost.

Perhaps the take-away from “Kopechnegate” is that torpedoes that sink presidential ambitions are of little use in senatorial campaigns. It may be possible to convince Northeast Republicans – who begin to wonder whether ANY Republican in the Northeast can wage a successful presidential campaign – that the U.S. Senate could use of a few new fiscally conservative, socially moderate, Eastern Seaboard politicians – and the title “Senator Christie, Lion Of The Senate” has a neat ring to it. Mr. Christie, as others have noted, IS capable of roaring.

Lieberman Leaves

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s post mortem began even before he officially announced his retirement.

Here in Connecticut, a politically battered Susan Bysiewicz rushed to announce in advance of U.S. Reps. Chris Murphy and Joe Courtney her availability for the seat hours after she had told bewildered reporters and commentators she would be spending the next few years ensconced in her new job with a prestigious law firm, drying out from a recent political dunking and acquiring active experience before the state’s bar. Mrs. Bysiewicz has been portrayed in the state’s media as an ambitious Lady Macbeth, but she probably is not much more ambitious than the usual political specimen.

Well… maybe a wee bit.

Connecticut can expect the same scramble for political crumbs that occurred when U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd announced his retirement. The frantic melee would be a little less over the edge if the state had term limits, a process that would allow a more dignified free for all. The present political rumble is for a senate position that, in the case of Mr. Dodd, is about half the reign of King George III. The senator who replaced Mr. Dodd, Dick Blumenthal, held his previous position of attorney general for 20 years. The average term in office of U.S. Senators has increased 300 percent since the first decade following the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. As of October 2008 there were four U.S. Senators -- Robert Byrd, Edward Kennedy, Daniel Inouye and Theodore Stevens – who had been in office over 40 years. The prospect of such a secure roost in office makes the rough and tumble scramble up the greasy political pole a matter of political life and death.

Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy congratulated Mr. Lieberman in a prepared statement on a “remarkable career of public service” and pointed out that the senator stuck to what he believed was right for his constituents and countrymen.” Acts of courage such as the senator’s steadfast support of “policies that have brought political freedom to Iraq and to Afghanistan when many Democrats sought to end that commitment prematurely,” Healy said, “almost cost Sen. Lieberman his political career in 2006 when radical liberals ousted him as the candidate of the Democrat Party, which once supported the foreign policies of both Republican and Democrat administrations.”

The “Nedheads,” of course, would not agree with this assessment, though many of the anti-war activists among them have been far less vocal in their opposition to the war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama’s “war of necessity,” than had been the case when Ned Lamont successfully challenged Mr. Lieberman in a primary, losing in the general election to Mr. Lieberman, who was able to draw support from Republicans and Independents.

Pretty nearly everyone seemed to agree that the prevailing circumstances that allowed Mr. Lieberman to snatch an earlier general election victory from the jaws of a primary defeat – a weak Republican candidate, a primary victor whose experience in office was shallow and a residual affection for Mr. Lieberman for having earlier defeated then Sen. Lowell Weicker, widely regarded as a Republican Party scourge -- would not be present in the general election two years after then Sen. Chris Dodd had left office.

By the time Mr. Lieberman made his announcement in Stamford at noon on Jan. 19, the news that he was retiring was old news. Nate Silver of the New York Times speculated that “The scariest possibility for Democrats would be if Ms. Rell decided to run for the seat.” Roll Call adjusted Connecticut’s race from “toss up” to “leans Democrat.” The New York Post advised that Connecticut Democrats should seek a centrist Democrat to run for Mr. Lieberman’s seat, which will be vacated in 2012. Salon noted that Mr. Lieberman was “Every Republican's favorite Democrat.” The American Prospect noted the New York Times noting that Bill Curry said of Mr. Lieberman, “It’s the first thing he’s done in 10 years to make Connecticut Democrats completely happy.” And Emily Bazelon, writing in Slate, cordially explained to readers of the on-line political magazine why she loathed Mr. Lieberman in a piece appropriately titled, “Good Riddance Joe Lieberman: Why I loathe my Connecticut senator.”

As Louis Prima sings in “Just A Gigolo” – “Life goes on without me.” Owing to a Prima release in the 1950’s, that song was inescapably linked with “I ain’t Got Nobody.”

History may show that Mr. Lieberman did have a few honorable people in his corner. Non-bilious historians may be kinder to Mr. Lieberman than the foaming at the mouth progressives who continue to loathe him, well after leading Democrats in Connecticut have agreed that civility in politics, going forward, should shape political discourse.

The Chameleon Factor, Authenticity, And The General Election

A chameleon will change its color, depending upon the place in which it finds itself, so as to make itself invisible to predators. Large animals have powerful toothy, bone splitting jaws to see them past precarious moments.

Small animals have their wits.

I saw my first chameleon when my wife and I were visiting Savannah, Georgia. I had taken my coffee out to a brick enclosed courtyard and from the corner of my eye perceived a motion in the plush ivy. I froze when I saw the chameleon because, never having seen one before at close range, I wished to observe it moving stealthily not a foot from the cup. Rotating its pin-hole of an eye, it passed from brick to ivy, changing color in its course from brick red to ivy green. When I made a sudden movement, it was up and over the wall like a marine at boot camp.

Some politicians are like chameleons, others not.

Martha Dean, the Republican nominee for attorney general this year, opened her campaign last March with all flags flying. Her opening campaign statement, more literary than most, left nothing to the imagination.

Dean said she did not wish to hide, chameleon like, in the usual political brush. And so, on the day she announced, friend and foe were treated to her opinions on matters of all kinds. She revered the state and federal constitutions and vowed to trim her behavior as attorney general to their strictures. Among rights enumerated in the federal constitution, was the right to bear arms, and she did not see why that right should be any more abridged than the right to freedom of speech or assembly. A little more than a month after her announcement, the Supreme Court, clearing its throat on the matter of whether the right to bear arms related to militias or individual citizens, gave her position on the second amendment some heft.

In the course of her campaign, Dean sought to answer forthrightly questions on capital punishment. She was not in favor of it, though later she seemed to admit certain exceptions. This is a sign of sanity: There is no rule on earth, said the great Cardinal Newman, to which there is not at least one exception. Dean thought it might be useful if firearm safety courses were taught in schools.

Many of these subjects were political tripwires. She danced light-footedly over them, certain that positions on political matters outside the purview of the office for which she was contending could not affect decisions she would make as attorney general. In fact, her principle objection to the present attorney general was that Richard Blumenthal had, in the course of his 20 years as attorney general, unnecessarily politicized his office.

Dean is not a chameleon, which is why her campaign early on struck a responsive chord among tea party activists and a handful of journalists in Connecticut who regularly beg shilly-shallying politicians to man up and take a firm position on this or that question in dispute. Tea party activists tend to support politicians who both make constitutional commitments and are unafraid to defend sometimes politically inauspicious positions. There is something in a Tea Party activist that does not like a chameleon, the sort of politician who in his first month in office will turn from bright red to deep blue depending upon the environment in which he finds himself.

This distrust of Mr. Politician-Looking-Both-Ways – the chameleon’s right and left eye each can rotate 180 degrees in different directions at the same time -- is a trait Tea Party folk share in common with many independents.

Blumenthal, now moving steadily from attorney general to U.S. senator, is, some would say, a chameleon’s chameleon. The attorney general and prospective U.S. senator has displayed a positive genius for sensing the political background, usually liberal, in which he finds himself and so audaciously conforming himself to it that one cannot see him, either on the brick or passing through the ivy. Startle him, and he is over the wall in an instant, like a marine in boot camp.

The chameleon factor will be important to many voters in the upcoming general election.

So, for that matter, will authenticity.

At a very basic level, authenticity involves a direct correlation between what is said and what is done. The hypocrite is the opposite of the authentic politician, be he liberal or conservative. Authenticity does not fear compromise. It is willing to make a deal. But the authentic politician is not willing to deal away his political patrimony, or his spine. In this sense, the late Edward Kennedy was authentically liberal. Reaching outside of active politics, we might say the late Bill Buckley was authentically conservative.

As a general rule, those new to politics cannot bring a political background with them because they are, politically, blank slates. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. A prospective politician without a political background, like a man without a country, ought not to have our undivided trust – until he unfurls his flag. This is why it is important before a general election to force the political newcomer to show what stuff he is made of. We may flee from the evil we know; but, to turn a phrase of Will Rogers, it’s not what you know about politicians that can hurt you -- it’s what you think you know, and don’t.

Dodd's Legacy

We think we know what made Dodd not run, but what makes him run? Over the last few months, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd has been waving goodbye to the senate, a bittersweet farewell occasioned, some think, by plummeting polls and the perception on the part of some of his constituents that he stuck around too long, like some disintegrating, punch-drunk boxer dreaming of his glory days in the ring.

Then again, in the last few months, Dodd has been “born again” – this time as a reformer. Prior to his born-again experience, he was what Roll Call calls “the consummate insider.”

The senator after whom Dodd patterned himself, “lion of the senate” Edward Kennedy, was, to be sure, more “consummate,” beltway lingo indicating the congressional “virtue” of getting your way by playing between the keys of the political organ.

It is said by the chattering class that Dodd is “working on his legacy.” A politician’s legacy is what remains of him after he has left office, history’s verdict on his multifarious career. Someone who has served long in the senate acquires twists and turns that later, when he begins to assemble his legacy, prove useful in guiding the myth makers.

It helps a great deal if the politician is what flappers in the 30’s might call a “smooth talker.” Nixon was not a smoothie, though his career had in it more useful turns than the Mississippi.When Nixon left the presidency in disgrace, he immediately started work on his legacy. He stayed off the firing line and wrote books; soon headhunters in the media were heaping praise upon him, and he died buried under a mound of plaudits. Here and there a few commentators scattered critical remarks over the bones.

Bill Buckley once was asked what the real Nixon was like.

“Which one,” he answered. “There are about four of them.”

Dodd has had what funeral directors might call “a good run.” There were no drowned women in his life, no misplaced cigars. He had an easy time of it with Connecticut’s liberal-to-a-fault media, running afoul of the jaws that bite only when commentators feared he was romancing the right. He was divorced only once, falling far short of Lowell Weicker’s record. Even his fiercest critics would agree Dodd – not to speak of him overmuch in the past tense -- was a nice enough chap. The Ortega brothers appreciated his attentions in Nicaragua; Fidel Castro tossed no barbed words in his direction; and had Castro wannabe Hugo Chavez taken power in Venezuela when Dodd was off schmoozing with the Sandinistas, Chavez would have sniffed no odor of brimstone pouring off the sainted senator.

Dodd will be safe in the hand of his biographers. He need not fear his legacy will be less flattering than that bestowed on Weicker by his biographer in “Maverick,” once reviewed by Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer Chris Powell under the critical title, “Mr. Bluster Saves The World.”

If the liberal Dodd faltered when he helped to dissolve any remaining restrictions imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act on large financial firms, he recovered somewhat by aggressively supporting President Barack Obama’s Health Care initiative. If he faltered when he supported President George Bush’s war in Iraq, after first opposing intervention in the Persian Gulf, he recovered somewhat by supporting Obama’s often stated campaign promise to bring the troops home from Iraq when doing so would have doomed to failure the military effort in that country -- Bush’s military effort. In yet another political pirouette, Dodd cautiously supported Obama’s war in Afghanistan, sometimes called by disappointed world conquerors “the graveyard of empires.”

The senator's cozy connection with Countrywide was a scar on his reputation. But few seemed to realize that his invaluable assistance to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, mortgage lenders too big to fail, may have been equally if not more problematic: One of the reasons large mortgage lenders were too big too fail was that congressional watchdogs such as Dodd and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank winked at their destructive lending practices. Indeed, Both Dodd and Frank rashly encouraged mortgage lenders to dole out tax dollars to recipients who could not afford mortgages.

We are told victory or utter collapse lie ahead of us, depending upon who is doing the telling. But history is not always a tale told by the victors. Sometimes it’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That is more often the case when the powerful among us are permitted to shape their own legacies.