Social Issues And The Democrats

On “social issues,” as defined by Democrats in the Northeast, here is no “there” there within the Republican Party’s ancient regime.

Northeast Republicans have only one election card on their table – the economy, stupid. There ain’t no more. Slothful Northeast Republican Parties have permitted Democrats to define all the social issues; for them, such subjects as abortion on demand, gay marriage and the abolition of the death penalty are strictly verboten. Among gentlemen Republican moderates in Connecticut, discretion on social issues has been the better part of valor for more than two decades, which may help to explain why there are no more social issue averse Republicans in New England.

The last Republican moderate in Connecticut who surrendered to Democrats on social issues was State Senator Andrew Roraback. Recently appointed to the judiciary by Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy, Mr. Roraback lost his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives to present U.S. Rep Elizabeth Esty.

Mr. Roraback’s loss was preceded by other Republican Party losses. Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation used to be studded with a host of moderate Republicans, among them U.S. Representatives Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Chris Shays. They have all been replaced by left of center Democrats. Mr. Malloy and the Malloyalists are all progressive Democrats. The moderate Democrat also has become an endangered species, at least here in the Northeast. In other parts of the nation, moderate Democrats, taking a cue from unions, are abandoning Obamacare in droves. Not in Connecticut. Obamacare is to progressives in Connecticut what the Alamo was to patriotic Texans.  

Concerning the much more lively and combative progressive Democrats, the National Journal puts it this way: “’Especially on social issues, the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has moved in the more liberal direction,’ said Bill Galston, a former Clinton administration official and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. ‘There's a new generation of Democrats who see lots of gain and very little pain in stronger gun safety legislation and gay marriage.’”

That is simply another way of saying that the forward motion within the Democratic Party, since the advent of President Barack Obama and his Chicago political machine, has been to the left; progressives are liberals raised to the 3^rd power and beyond.

When a newspaper wished to bestow a compliment on Republican candidate for governor John McKinney it wrote of his father, Stewart McKinney, that the late 4^th District U.S. House Representative “was the type of Republican that has all but vanished from the political landscape: A New Englander who smartly blended fiscal conservatism with social progressivism, working on pro-environment legislation and supporting abortion rights.”

The 4^th District is now owned by Democrat Jim Himes. The 5^th District was owned by progressive Democrat Chris Murphy before he moved on to the U.S. Senate. The entire Connecticut U.S. Congressional delegation is progressive, and one of the reasons New Englanders who in the past neatly blended fiscal conservatism with social conservatism are now so rare a species in the Northeast is that all of them have been replaced by Democrats who are left of center on economic issues and purebred progressives on social issues.

Not only are there no social moderates, Republican or Democrat, in Connecticut’s one party state, there are no fiscal conservatives either. “Fiscal conservatism” is a blind used by Democrats in Connecticut who quickly abandon all pretense of a prudent economic policy once they achieve office.

If in the post Obama era you vote for a fiscally conservative, socially progressive Democrat , you will end up, after he has mingled in the course of a few months with brother progressives in the legislature, with a fiscally and socially progressive enthusiast of the purest water. The whole notion of a fiscal conservative who is also a social progressive is in much of the Northeast a rib tickling mythical construct – like a unicorn or a griffin.

The problem with the Connecticut Republican Party is NOT that it does not know how to stoop on social issues to conquer on fiscal issues. The problem is that the stooping no longer conquers – because Republicans have permitted the far left to define “social issues.” That is why the moderate Republican in New England is nearly an extinct species; he has ceded half the political battleground to the opposition and lost the war.

Republicans must learn how to broaden the “social issues” category to include the social ramifications of such obvious disasters as Obamacare, the one party state, crony capitalism, the disintegration of families, a penology that crowds courts and prisons with social delinquents while giving get-out-of-jail-early credits to murderous inmates, arrogant legislators who think it unnecessary to schedule hearings on bills that shape the future of the state, a tax, regulatory and spending policy that drives businesses out of Connecticut… and on and on. All these are SOCIAL ISSUES, women’s issues, minority issues, and left unattended, they will bring Connecticut to its knees, which is exactly the suppliant posture that politically suits the kind of progressive who regards the salvation state as the first and only resource for afflicted citizens.

The Democrats’ 10 Percent Solution With Malloy as Firewall

The split between Connecticut’s two major parties is most dramatic on the question of spending.

Governor Dannel Malloy took a pledge early in his administration, after he had imposed upon the state the largest tax increase in its history, reminiscent of a pledge made by former President H.W. Bush: No new tax increases. Internal pressures were such during the Bush administration that the president reneged on his pledge.

The pressures are always there, especially in tax prone Connecticut. It was the fashion during the administration of Republican Maverick turned Independent Lowell Weicker to regard deficits as revenue rather than spending problems; and, of course, the solution to a revenue problem is to boost revenue.

This misperception – always encouraged by politicians uncomfortable with spending cuts – had tripled the bottom line of Connecticut’s budgets within the space of three governors. Focused on revenue boosts, Mr. Weicker and succeeding Republican Governors John Rowland and Jodi Rell rarely were put in the uncomfortable position of having to disappoint powerful union interests. Spending inched inexorably up.

When Mr. Malloy was installed as governor, it was generally supposed that the spending tap would be turned wide open. The so called“firewalls,” Republican governors who had offered a mild resistance to spending increases, were gone: Laissez les bons temps rouler, as they say during Marti Gras in New Orleans that precedes an abstemious Lent .

Democratic leaders in the General Assembly, impatient with the snail’s pace progress of a self-proclaimed progressive governor, have now proposed changes in the Malloy budget that increase spending by 10 percent. There is every reason to believe that Democrats stuck on stupid are still in a “let the good times roll” frame of mind.

And why not? Moderate Republican office holders in Connecticut have been washed away by the onrushing progressive high tide. Consider the number of Republican moderates who have fallen in recent years under the boots of the progressive hordes in Connecticut. Within Connecticut’s all Democratic U.S. Congressional delegation alone, three moderate Republicans– Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Chris Shays, the last moderate Republican in New England before he surrendered his seat to current Democratic U.S. Representative Jim Himes -- had been replaced by ambitious progressives. Mr. Malloy and his Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman proudly march cheek by jowl with striking union workers, and no one winces. The largest tax increase in Connecticut history was accompanied with a union deal that assured salary and benefit increases to state workers of 3 percent nine years out, an arrangement at first rejected by union representatives, which rejection was characterized by Edith Prague, a longtime supporter of Connecticut unions, as a form of unthinking madness.

Despite a stalled economy, the progressive parade in Connecticut marches merrily and heedlessly on. Occasional disputes with leaders in the opposition party are imperiously brushed aside by Democrats who outnumber Republicans in the state by a commanding two to one majority. The difference in sheer numbers relieves Democrats of the necessity of quibbling over crucial economic points imperfectly grasped by an easily distractible media in the grip of an economic vise that has considerably reduced its own numbers.

What all this really means is that Mr. Malloy has now become Connecticut’s spending “firewall.”And the governor is surrounded by progressive Democrats quite certain that more spending will hasten the arrival of better times, a philosophy of governance to which Mr. Malloy also subscribes. On matters upon which there are some discernible differences between Mr. Malloy and the Democrat dominated General Assembly –say, education reform – Mr. Malloy’s programs have been refined by progressive leaders in the legislature. Both President Pro Tem of the Senate Don Williams and Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey have had a good deal of practice in curbing the modest ambitions of past Republican governors, and there is no reason to suppose they will not employ their talents to frustrate a governor who proves to be insufficiently progressive on matters they consider ideologically important – like, to fetch for one example, ramping up the progressive income tax on Connecticut Gold Coast millionaires.

While Mr. Malloy has said he is averse to tax increases, he has moved steadily in the direction of increasing state revenue through a series of measures – borrowing money to pay off budget expenses, reneging on a gentleman’s agreement with “bad” energy producers to liquidate a “temporary” tax on the production of electricity, boosting the notorious gross receipt tax on gasoline, and short-sheeting hospitals, to cite but four examples – that most charitably may be described as revenue enhancers.

All eyes in the General Assembly are fastened on the governor. Given an inch, progressive legislators have now demanded a yard – a ten percent increase in spending. It is precisely incremental increasing in spending of this kind that has tripled the bottom line of Connecticut budgets since the imposition of the state income tax in 1991, a short two decades ago. Progressives in the General Assembly are betting that while the governor’s no tax increase spirit is willing, his progressive Democratic flesh is weak. Because taxing and spending are inextricably connected, the easiest way to drive up taxes by 10 percent is to increase spending by 10 percent. And the red ink, in progressive strategy, is little more than an inducement to impose a steeper progressive tax on greedy hedge fund managers living the life in Fairfield County.

The Spending Problem

A number of conclusions may be drawn from the presidential campaign. Republicans, led by Mitt Romney, lost, and Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, won. That datum you can take to the bank.

Republican Party internecine quarrels arise over the “why”questions. Why did Mitt Romney lose? Why did Mr. Obama win? What are Republicans doing right, and what are they doing wrong?

Within the Republican Party, there are two schools of thought. The schools are as old and venerable as the modern Republican Party, which sprang, pretty much full-blown, from the brain of the late Bill Buckley.

One school holds that Republicans are not moderate enough to appeal to moderate Republicans and Democrats. This premise founders on the following datum: In Connecticut, centrist Democrats have been routed by progressives, a progressive being a liberal raised to the 10^thpower. There is no longer a live and effective middle to Connecticut’s state Democratic Party. Most of the Democrats enjoying power positions in their party have abandoned the liberal ship for the progressive dinghy.

Some few commentators who continue to speak reverently of“the vital center” are simply remembering with great affection a political order that has vanished in Connecticut and, perhaps more broadly, in New England.

An opposing school holds that Republicans are not conservative enough. Moderate Republicans in the Northeast, they point out, are a vanishing species. In Connecticut alone, moderate Republicans have fallen to Democratic opponents in numbers too astonishing to ignore. U.S. Representatives Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Chis Shays all were defeated in office by purportedly moderate Democrats who now style themselves progressives. Indeed, Chris Shays was the last moderate Republican U.S. House member in New England.

The fallen Republican bodies seem to cinch the argument of those on the right who say that moderatism – if one may invent a word – is responsible for Republican losses in the Northeast. A robust conservatism elsewhere in the country continues to produce congressional and gubernatorial winners. In Connecticut, the entire U.S. Congressional delegation is Democratic and progressive. Both houses of the General Assembly are dominated by Democrats. And in 2011, Dannel Malloy, for many years mayor of Stamford, became the first Democratic governor in the state since former Governor William O’Neill hung up his spurs more than 20 years earlier.

Running on a “shared sacrifice” slogan, according to which everyone in the state should bear their fair share of misery, Mr. Malloy was able, by cutting Republicans out of budget negotiations, to push through the Democratic dominated General Assembly the largest tax increase in state history. Some Republicans quipped at the time that Mr. Malloy, always an aggressive political competitor, may have felt himself in competition with former Governor Lowell Weicker, a self-styled “maverick” Republican who had imposed upon Connecticut the state’s secondlargest tax increase. The Weicker income tax had been resisted vigorously by previous Democratic governors William O’Neill and Ella Grasso.

Mr. Malloy’s promised savings were largely amorphous, which hardly seems a fair shared sacrifice. Even after he had imposed the largest tax increase in the state’s history, Mr. Malloy has had great difficulty balancing his budgets.

Recently Mr. Malloy has been criticized by Republican state legislators – two of whom, Larry Cafero, a member of the state House for 14 years, and John McKinney, a member of the state Senate for as many years -- as having adopted discreditable budget balancing methods, a charge deployed effectively by Mr. Malloy during his first campaign against his two Republican predecessors, Governors Jodi Rell and John Rowland. Like President Barack Obama, Mr. Malloy inherited his red ink.

Both Mrs. Rell, often criticized by Connecticut’s left of center media as an indolent governor, and Mr. Rowland, were styled as Republican “firewalls” who thwarted improvident spending. In truth, neither was effective in preventing the Democratic dominated General Assembly from readjusting Republican budgets to accommodate more spending. Taxation and consequent spending have increased under a Democratic regime that regards firewalls as momentary obstacles to be overcome.

Indeed, spending is a problem Republicans, both nationally and in Connecticut, seem powerless to confront. The rhetorical ammo that might be effectively discharged in a campaign against improvident spending is simply absent. The central pillar of the Romney campaign was not improvident spending but rather over taxation and consequent economic anemia.

The last president who put a sizable dent in spending, budget reduction and taxes was Calvin Coolidge, styled by Amity Shlaes, the author of“Coolidge,” as “the Great Refrainer.” Even the sainted Ronald Reagan spent money like a class-warfare intoxicated Democrat; the federal budget rose by over a third during his administration. Connecticut’s Yankee Institute will host Ms. Shlaes, who believes Mr. Coolidge may serve a model for a reinvigorated Republican Party, at the Stamford Sheraton on March 28. Information is available here.

What if She Wins?

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 MittRomney 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.

All the seats in the state’s congressional delegation are held by Democrats who are able, by virtue of their incumbency, to outspend Republicans by indecent margins. Senator John Larson of the impregnable 1st District routinely outspends his Republican opponents; and until recently Rosa DeLauro, like U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal a millionaire, has effectively sidestepped her Republican opponent, Wayne Winsley.

When Mrs. McMahon lost to Democratic superstar Blumenthal, her critics were quick to point out that the $50 million misspent by Mrs. McMahon could not purchase an election. Dollars, it was said, didn’t matter. Assuming a win, Mrs. McMahon’s critics this time will insist that she bought her Senate seat on the cheap by flooding the state with ads that personally attacked her Democratic opponent, who in the past had some difficulty in paying his rent and later his mortgage; no big thing, happens all the time said editorials endorsing Mr. Murphy.

Finally, her critics will insist that Mrs. McMahon has no mandate to govern because she refused to engage during her campaign on important issues of the day, choosing instead to cling feverishly to a narrow campaign message forged by her handlers.

Mrs. McMahon may have picked up this trick from Mr. Blumenthal who during the final days of his campaign, following disclosures that the attorney general had lied several times concerning his non-service in Vietnam – no big thing – sedulously avoided his critics. Mr. Blumenthal’s entire senatorial campaign was a reprise of his glory days as Connecticut’s suit happy Attorney General, a public persona he finds it convenient to maintain as U. S. Congressman; as senator and the nation’s premier congressional consumer advocate, Mr. Blumenthal now is toying with a bill thatwould affect advertising for scooter chairs.

There is some justice to this last charge brought against Mrs. McMahon. The first rule of politics for Republicans running in a reliably blue state is this: If you don’t give the jackals red meat – say in the form of a carefully crafted position paper on President Barack Obama’s murderously ineptforeign policy blundering in Benghazi – the servants of the status quo in the state, who are legion, will sup on the marrow of your bones. Better to give them the red meat.

Mrs. McMahon easily might have avoided the presumption that she is light-headed on congressional matters by a few carefully thought out speeches on a) the economy, b) foreign policy and c) a topic of her own choice that might have thrown some light on her fitness to serve in what has been called, before it descended into a campaign Ponzi scheme constructed in Chicago, the greatest deliberative body on earth.

Both Mrs. McMahon and Mr. Murphy have become prisoners of their handlers. Mr. Murphy’s entire campaign bears the imprint of a “made in Chicago” mafia hit: Republicans hate women; Mrs. McMahon is morally destitute; crony capitalism directed from the White House will lift both the country and Connecticut from imminent ruin; the cure for bottomless debt is more Beltway spending; taxes should be increased on quarter millionaires to pay for improvident spending; salafists can be our friends, provided we lather them sufficiently with diplomatic kowtows and saccharine speeches concerning the brotherhood of man; bills passed on to creditors and young people expected to pick up the tab for bankrupted national programs will never come due; Wall Street alone caused the Bush economic collapse – all juvenile nonsense designed to spare the human brain the necessity of critical thought.

Convinced – not without reason – that Connecticut’s left of center media had iced the political sidewalk hoping for a an embarrassing pratfall on matters of little importance, Mrs. McMahon shut the door on the media during her primary run against former U.S. Representative Chris Shays. Money in that race was crucial; Mr. Shays hadn’t enough on hand to challenge Mrs. McMahon vigorously, and he made a serious error in judgment when he declined to ask delegates to the Republican Convention in Hartford to support him. Mrs. McMahon opened the door a crack during her debates with Mr. Murphy and agreed to talk with the editorial board of a major newspaper that in all probability will endorse Mr. Murphy.

As a result of all this, Connecticut citizens are left with anti-campaigns directed by political outliers who certainly will not bear the consequences of their efforts. The buck, as usual, will fall most heavily on the general populace, which is what happens when democratic institutions suffer irreversible breakdowns.

McMahon Slouching Towards Bethlehem

In its first survey of “likely voters,” a Quinnipiac poll shows Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate making inroads upon Chris Murphy, the Democratic U.S. Representative who this year is hoping to fill U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s Independent shoes:
 

“In today's survey, McMahon's 54 - 42 percent lead among men swamps Murphy's small 50 - 46 percent lead among women. McMahon leads 88 - 10 percent among Republicans and 55 - 40 percent among independent voters, while Murphy takes Democrats 82 - 16 percent.”

Mrs. McMahon has always drawn a strong male vote. Having learned important lessons from her loss to now Senator Richard Blumenthal, Mrs. McMahon this time at bat made a vigorous effort to capture women’s votes, and her 15 point lead over Mr. Murphy among Independents must be encouraging to her campaign.

Esty, Roraback, Donovan and the Correlation of Forces

The question before the house now that Speaker of the state House Chris Donovan has been bested in a Democratic primary by former state Representative Elizabeth Esty is: Will Mr. Donovan join a majority of Democrats in Connecticut and support the people’s choice for the U.S. Congress in the 5^th District? Mr. Donovan was defeated in the recently concluded Democratic primary by a large margin: Esty's final vote total was 12,678 to Donovan's 9,212 and Roberti's 6,583.

Post Primary Ressentiment

The primaries are over, which means that Republicans need no longer bash Republicans and Democrats need no longer bash Democrats.

A time of “healing” and “unification” is close at hand.

YouTube snippets of former Representative Chris Shays intemperately asserting he has never in his years of politicking – no, never -- met a Republican primary opponent he would not under any circumstances support will live on in a sort of YouTube afterlife, and it would be foolish to suppose that SuperPACs supporting Democratic primary winner Chris Murphy would not make ample use of Mr. Shays’ unfortunate apoplectic burst of Nietzsche ressentiment. “I have never run against an opponent that I have respected less -- ever -- and there are a lot of candidates I have run against," Mr. Shays told the New Haven Register.

Patrick Skully, the proprietor of “The Hanging Shad,” touted on his site as “Connecticut’s BEST Political blog and commentary,” wrote of Mr. Shays on the eve of the primaries, “This is over. The Chris Shays campaign didn’t care for [Mr. Skully’s] characterization that the former congressman has gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs because Linda McMahon is beating him. Sorry, I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

It would be redundant to note that Mr. Skully reflexively supports Democrats and is no friend of Linda McMahon. Following Mrs. McMahon’s refusal to meet with editorial boards before primary votes were cast, the Republican Party’s choice for the U.S. Senate has few friends within editorial boards and none among commentators whose primary business lies in advising promising Democratic candidates for office.

Some things are obvious:

· Primary scars do not heal quickly; sometimes not at all. Once the Rubicon is crossed, it becomes impossible to reenter the Roman Republic. Mr. Shays’ primary campaign remarks may seem insurrectionary to some Republican Party leaders.

· Democrats are running the state of Connecticut and have little to fear from Republicans, which is why the first Democratic governor in more than 20 years, Dannel Malloy, and present Speaker of the state House Chris Donovan, had little to fear when Republicans were shown the door during budget negotiations that imposed, mostly on middle class nutmeggers, the largest tax increase in state history. Even among Connecticut’s left of center media, no journalist who has a nodding acquaintance with inconvenient truths could possible confuse Mr. Donovan or his likely replacement, House Majority Leader Brendan Sharkey, with traditional Connecticut moderate Democrats. Under such circumstances, the Republican Party needs seasoned fighters, not accomodationists.

· The “center” in both parties took a hike decades ago. Moderate Republicans have had no success in overthrowing liberal Democrats in Connecticut’s Congressional delegation; there are no Rockefeller Republican survivals in the U.S. House anywhere in New England. Mr. Shays was the last moderate Republican when he was unseated by current 4^th District U.S. Representative Jim Himes a dozen years ago. Mr. Shays’ present rejection by Connecticut Republicans simply confirms that the species almost everywhere in the Northeast has become as extinct as the Dodo bird. The breed lives on only in the nostalgic memories of journalists in the Northeast afflicted with a crippling anti-conservative phobia.

· Without question, the most often reiterated refrain since Mrs. McMahon was unable to prevent then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal from occupying former Senator Chris Dodd’s seat in the U.S. Congress– the former senator is now a multi-millionaire lobbyist for Tinseltown – is that Mrs. McMahon’s millions could not buy a senate seat. Mrs. McMahon’s critics were right: Fifty million dollars spent on a senate campaign was pointlessly spent. However, a recent variation on the refrain goes like this: Money can buy a senate seat. So says Mr. Murphy, Democrats everywhere in the state and the state’s left of center media. Their message, in any case, is confusing.

What has not been said of Mrs. McMahon’s campaign is perhaps more important, if less obvious.

She has so far run a very traditional, stellar ground campaign, which is no guarantee that she will prevail over Mr. Murphy, who has gathered in his own corner enough dollars and ancillary support to wage an effective campaign against Mrs. McMahon.

Of the two campaigners, Mrs. McMahon’s message – it’s raining, and the spending downpour is not likely to stop anytime soon --comports with the reality people see when they free themselves of campaign propaganda and look out the window at the real world.

Murphy, Romney and SuperPACs

What do U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, the state Democratic Party nominee for the U .S. Senate, and Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president, have in common?

They are both victims of misleading ads, and those who initiated the ads refused to pull them after they had been shown to be pock marked with errors.

A Democratic primary ad criticizing Mr. Murphy approved by Susan Bysiewicz was found to contain errors of a minor nature. The ad claimed Mr. Murphy was the number one recipient of Wall Street hedge fund contributors in the nation. Mr. Murphy was number four, not number one.

Mr. Murphy’s lawyers at one point threatened to sue Connecticut television stations carrying the ad, even though the stations were obligated by law to run it. Eventually, Mrs. Bysiewicz pulled her ad, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief; no legal suits were filed.

The anti-Romney ad -- the handiwork of Priorities USA, a super PAC founded by former White House spokesman Bill Burton who, despite glaring faults in the scurrilous ad, refused to pull it. -- is much more egregious. Mr. Burton’s ad strongly suggests that Mr. Romney is responsible for the death of a cancer victim, the wife of steelworker Joe Soptic, who lost his job and health care benefits after Mr. Romney's Bain Capital closed a steel plant in Kansas City, Mo., in 2001.

Mr. Soptic describes in the ad how his wife developed cancer and strongly suggests that Mr. Romney is to blame, his non-portable insurance policy having elapsed when he lost his job -- owing, one supposes, to Mr. Romney ungovernable greed.

Several difficulties soon emerged that overthrew the planted axioms in the ad: Mr. Soptic's wife died in 2006, five years after the company that employed her husband closed. Mrs. Soptic had the use of her own health insurance following her husband’s unemployment and lost her coverage after she too lost her job – not, one supposes, as a result of Mr. Romney’s greed.

The SuperPAC is the bitter fruit of campaign finance reform measures authored by Shays-Meehan in the U.S. House and McCain-Feingold in the U.S. Senate. The “Shays” of Shays-Meehan is former U.S. Representative Chris Shays, a Republican running for the same seat in the U.S. Senate as Mr. Murphy.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a decision firmly anchored in Constitutional law that the campaign finance bill could not restrict large campaign donations issuing from corporations or unions without violating First Amendment rights. While such donations could constitutionally be prohibited to political parties, large donations assembled by SuperPACs were permitted --provided the SuperPAC was not formally connected to a candidate or party. SuperPACs then proceeded to use the money to produce ads and other in-kind contributions useful to favored candidates or critical of their opponents (LINK).

Thus were born in the same legislative womb and at the same time the twin evils of SuperPACs and negative campaign ads.

Mrs. Bysiewicz is not yet a SuperPAC, but Priorities USA is– and the connections between Priorities USA and President Barack Obama, who benefits greatly from the SuperPAC’s ads, are, others have pointed out, just a little too close for comfort.

Priorities USA was founded by former White House spokesman Bill Burton; his associate, (NAME) Gibbs, served as White House press secretary when Mr. Burton was his deputy for about two years during the first half of Mr. Obama's term.

Even some Democrats and their well-wishers in the media are not pleased with the SuperPac’s obvious connections to the Obama campaign.

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said the ad was "over the edge," and Lanny Davis, once an adviser to President Clinton, dubbed it "disgusting."

Mika Brzezinski, the progressive co-host of the "Morning Joe" show on MSNBC and a face familiar to news watchers in Connecticut, said that Obama campaign officials were "not telling the truth" about how much they knew about the commercial.

In view of the stringent provisos laid down by the Supreme Court, the campaign officials probably have lawyers attached to their legs the way some criminals on probation are burdened with ankle monitors.

Everyone in such elaborate charades is supposed to be politically disconnected; but in fact, the producers of such ads and the candidates whose campaigns they “indirectly” promote are in some cases professionally and ideologically connected at their brain stems.

Campaign financing has made it nearly impossible for political parties to fund party chosen candidates. Incumbent politicians – who have now become their own petit political parties and who complain bitterly that they spend too large a part of their time financing their own campaigns --wanted it that way. And incumbents need SuperPACS to shuttle campaign funds around a U.S. Supreme Court ruling soundly grounded in constitutional and statutory law.

No one has yet asked Mr. Murphy, the victim of a false ad, whether he feels Mr. Romney’s pain.

He probably does not. In September, Mr. Murphy likely will face a self-funded Republican candidate of means. And he will need the services, financial and otherwise, offered to him by his very own SuperPAC, “Connecticut's Future,” whose chairman, Chris VanDeHoef, a Hartford lobbyist, was five years ago a groomsman at Murphy's wedding party.

Mr. VanDeHoft also had been the executive director of the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association, one of those jolly journalists who buy ink by the barrel and who, one presumes, still is on speaking terms with his colleagues in Connecticut’s left of center media. Other members of Mr. Murphy’s SuperPACare former executive director and general counsel of the State Elections Enforcement Commission Jeff Garfieldand Kevin Graf, former chief of staff to state Senate Democrats. The keeper of the coins is Attorney Joseph Taborsak, who will serve as treasurer of Mr. Murphy’s new bride, to which he has plighted his troth till death do them part.

No Comics on the Right

It would be difficult for anyone other than politicians on the right, often the butt of his jokes, to disdain Colin McEnroe. We in the land of Mark Twain do love and forgive our humorists their hyperbole, and Mr. McEnroe is the closest thing Connecticut has to, say, Aristophanes, the famous Greek comic playwright of the 4^thcentury BC.

Time, as we know, is the enemy of sound scholarship. The ruin of Greece has left huge gaps in our understanding of, among other things, Greek comic playwrights. Only eleven of Aristophanes’ 40 plays survive virtually complete. Modern scholarship, which relies on multiple disciplines –archeology, for instance -- to fill in the gaps, shows us an Aristophanes who was an arch political critic, though he wore many masks.

In his plays, Aristophanes mercilessly and subversively routed by means of humor the larger and more offensive pretentions of his day. Plato’s beef against Aristophanes was that his play “The Clouds” slandered Socrates and so led to the philosopher’s trial and execution, perhaps an over-reaction on the part of a shameless Socratic groupie.

Greek politicians, one may imagine, were none too pleased with him. Cleon, represented in “The Knights” as a political opportunist, a sharpie and a demagogue, felt his spurs. A populist leader of the pro-war faction in Athens, Cleon was a prime target of Aristophanes’ early plays, and the inevitable suit for slander brought by Cleon against Aristophanes, only served to further inflame the playwright against him.

Aristophanes was approached one day by one of the butts of his jokes, possibly a politician held up to ridicule in one of the lost plays, who demanded whether he took ANYTHING seriously.

“Of course,” said Aristophanes, “I take comedy seriously.”

So should modern politicians. Humor is dynamite. It entices populist sensibilities and focuses them on inconvenient moments that, having raised a laugh, stick in the memory.
Mark Twain, no slouch when it came to political invective, put in the mouth of his Young Satan the following fierce defense of humor:

“Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them -- and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon-- laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug -- push it a little -- crowd it a little -- weaken it a little, century by century: But only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand."

Mr. McEnroe is a serious student of Twain’s persuasion, and he’s very good at what he does, which is to create word cartoons of politicians and their foibles, all seen from a leftist point of view. But leftists, as we all know, are not inclined to blow leftists to rags and atoms. There are no moderates or rightists, for instance, in Connecticut’s Congressional delegation,a point underscored by Mr. McEnroe:

“As a political humor writer, I am very nervous about having [Chris] Murphy and Richard Blumenthal as our senators. They're bad for business. Murphy has not been funny since Lee Whitnum barked‘Whore!!’ at him in a debate, and you can't count on that kind of thing happening very often.” Where Mr. McEnroe sees a comic wasteland, a conservative writer would see an Elysian field abloom with comic possibilities, especially in respect of Mr. Blumenthal, the political manikin.

Pity there are no comics on the right writing for Connecticut’s media, overstocked as always with liberals like Mr. McEnroe. Is there anything more depressing than an old comic in a dry month? The number of cartoonists and political comics on the right in a state that used to pride itself on its political moderation – no longer, alas – is no greater than the number of Republican politicians among its Congressional delegation, which is none, and this is very curious.

As in most other states at the beginning of the 21^stcentury, Connecticut’s two major parties have been sacked and conquered by conservatives on the right and progressives on the left, which is another way of saying that political ideas in the postmodern period have become serious. Since comedy by its nature is conservative and journalism by its nature is contrarian, one would suppose there would arise in Connecticut, chock-a-block with enthroned liberals and sans-culottes progressives, a contingent of conservative writers, commentators and journalists to kick at the progressive pricks.

This has not happened. The resistance to conservative ideas, in many other states a failure, has held in the Northeast. But moderation in both parties has been the first casualty of the 21^st century war of ideas.

On the left, the old liberals have been routed by bushy-tailed progressives; on the right, moderate Republicans have been driven out of New England by a conservative resurgence that had not yet ebbed. The last of the moderate Republicans in New England, former U.S. Representative Chris Shays, this year is running for the U.S. Senate as moderate in conservative clothing.

For Mr. McEnroe, politics has suddenly become complex. Ordinarily, a leftist with a conscience would drift toward the Democratic nominee for congress in the 5^th District Chris Donovan, Connecticut’s progressive LeonTrotsky. But alas, the shadow of the prison has fallen upon him, and Mr. McEnroe has spent too much of his career pillorying corrupt politicians – mostly Republicans– to support Donovan:

"I really should support Donovan, but I can’t. For about two decades I have trumpeted the ideals of clean government and clean elections. I have made a point of holding elected officials and candidates responsible for the actions of their subordinates. I considered Rell responsible for Lisa Moody and Rowland responsible for Peter Ellef. I hold Lisa Wilson-Foley responsible for whoever set up the deal with Rowland, even if that wasn’t her."

Here and there in Connecticut, one finds a lonely editorial voice crying out in an empty theatre that the vital center must be preserved, as one preserves in a museum the dusty artifacts of the past. Epicenters have become centers. And even these lonely voices are fierce partisans, mostly progressives – wolves, in the memorable phrase of Winston Churchill, dressed in wolves’ clothing.

Real comic possibilities would present themselves to a conservative comic writer in Connecticut – since virtually all the fish in the political pond are museum styled liberals or Eugene Debs like progressives. But it is pointless to expect a political conversion from Mr. McEnroe at this late date. He is too emotionally committed to waggery on the left.

Aristophanes, the comic writer who said he took comedy seriously, would have converted.

Fishwrap For July

Salon Weighs in on Connecticut’s U.S. Senatorial Race

Alex Pareene, who writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt [Romney]," has weighed in on the Chris Shays-Linda McMahon Republican primary contest for the U.S. Senate in an article titled “Chris Shays has no respect for Linda McMahon: The last Yankee Republican shares his honest opinion of his primary opponent.”

Mr. Pareene, formerly of Gawker, is likely not from the nutmeg state, but this is no impediment to Mr. Pareene, who writes:

"Shays is pro-choice, pro-gun control, an environmentalist, pro-gay rights, pro-campaign finance reform — basically your classic New England Yankee Republican. Or as we call them now, 'Democrats.”'This helps to explain why he’s having so much trouble defeating someone as ridiculous as Linda McMahon, whose sole asset as a politician is her great wealth, which she earned off the labor of poorly treated 'independent contractor' wrestlers who were not even offered health insurance as they destroyed their bodies with drugs in other to retain their dangerous jobs with her company, World Wrestling Entertainment. She is a rich ‘outsider’ who repeats dumb Tea Party lines about the Fed and the deficit, and he is a “career politician” who represents a long-dead faction of the Republican Party.”

Sam Gejdenson Finds Death Of Cuban Dissident Suspicious

Mr. Gejdenson, the first child of Holocaust survivors elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was for 19 years the U.S. Representative for the 2nd Congressional District of Connecticut. He was preceded in office by Former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul, and succeeded by former U.S. Representative Rob Simmons, who in turn was displaced by current U.S. Rep Joe Courtney.

According to CTMirror:

“Cuban authorities Monday said Payá and fellow activist Harold Cepero Escalante died in a one-car crash in eastern Cuba. A Spaniard and a Swede who were also riding in the car survived but were injured.

“Gejdenson called the accident ‘a suspicious turn of events,’ but said he had no proof of wrongdoing.

“In a statement, the White House Monday called Payá ‘a tireless champion for greater civic and human rights in Cuba.’

"’He remained optimistic until the end that the country he loved would see a peaceful and democratic transition,’ the statement said.”

Communist dictator of Cuba Fidel Castro and his brother Raoul have in the past been adept at concealing proofs of all sorts, but killing dissidents never has dimmed the ardor of businesses in the United States and elsewhere who hope to ply their trade in Cuba, despite the Castros’ penchant for nationalizing corporations and dispersing the proceeds by giving them to Cubans made poor by applied Marxist-Leninism.
Mr. Gejdenson, now involved in international trade with his own company, Sam Gejdenson International (SGI) – not yet nationalized by the Obama administration -- resides in Branford and presumably is still a Democrat.

Multiple Murderer Awarded Prestigious Grant

WNEW News reports that Batman Holmes, the orange headed mass murderer was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

“James Holmes, the alleged gunman in the recent theater shooting that left 12 dead in Aurora, Colo., was previously awarded a $26,000 federal grant.”

U.N. Let’s Legalize Prostitution

Please don’t tell U.S. Health and Human Services Commissioner Kathleen Sebelius that the New York institution Charles Krauthammer described as a “sandbox of tyrants” would like, with or without your input, to legalize prostitution – in a good cause, of course.

The report--“HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights &Health”--cites a recommendation by the International Labour Organization, which recommends that “sex work” should be recognized as an occupation in order to be regulated “in a way that protects workers and customers.”

What Middle?

Depending upon which audience he happens to be addressing –business groups, unions -- U.S. Representative Chris Murphy of Connecticut’s 5^thDistrict puts on one of two faces, one appealing to the left and another to the right.

Some in Connecticut’s media are beginning to catch on to the trick, among them Chris Keating of the Hartford Courant, who reports on Mr. Murphy’s efforts to claim middle position in politics by reason of his membership in something called The Center Aisle Caucus.

Deputy Editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report Nathan L. Gonzales, Mr. Keating notes, “said the caucus is more of a social group than one that gets involved in the nitty gritty of writing complicated legislation on major issues.”

If Mr. Murphy were a moderate, it might not be a plus for him in any case because “’I don't know that voters reward moderation,’ Gonzales said. ‘If you're a member who talks with somebody from the other side of the aisle, you are immediately met with a primary challenge because you are viewed as compromising.’”

Mr. Murphy already is engaged in a primary battle with the redoubtable former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, who has been attempting to convince progressives in Connecticut that Mr. Murphy is the plaything of Wall Street malefactors of great wealth, a slur Mr. Murphy quite properly resents.

Mr. Murphy is the plaything of arch progressives in his state.

Gone is the day when the middle in Connecticut politics mattered. What used to be called “the vital center” of Democratic politics in the state has moved very far to the left.

Following the election of Dannel Malloy as governor, all the firewalls have collapsed, and everyone knows it. In Mr. Malloy’s short time in office, Democrats have written a budget that many believe was never in balance. The budget battle, for the first time in living memory, was shaped without any Republican input, leading Republicans having been shooed out of the room while Dominant Democrats in the General assembly pre-approved a budget that was substantially changed after the governor’s confabulations with SEBAC, a coalition of unions authorized to bargain with the governor on state contracts. One witty commentator at the time– it might have been me – claimed that SEBAC had become in the course of the seemingly endless negotiations Connecticut’s fourth branch of government.

The union friendly budget, the largest tax increase in state history, the abolition of the death penalty, the candidacy of Speaker of the state House Chris Donovan as the Democratic Party’s choice for the U.S. Congress in the 5^thDistrict, the somnolent response of the governor upon learning that Mr.Donovan’s hand-picked finance director had been arrested by the FBI for fraudulently accepting campaign donations, the governor’s facile response to the nomination by his party of former convict Ernie Newton to his old state senate seat -- all this and more suggest that the vital center of the state Democratic Party has been somewhat corrupted. This kind of corruption is the handmaiden of the one party state oblivious to its political responsibilities. Unless there is a voter reaction to one party rule, it will not be long before the entire state goes the way of its one party urban centers.

In any case, there is no middle in Connecticut politics any longer. We are all progressives now.

All In The Family

And finally, we learn from a report in the Hearst papers that the head of a new SuperPAC, Future PAC, devoted to electing U.S. Representative Chris Murphy to the U.S. Senate was a “member of Murphy's wedding party five years ago.”

Linda McMahon spokesman Tim Murtaugh snorted, upon hearing the news, “So they're not going to coordinate and communicate for six months. I'm not sure that passes the laugh test." SuperPACs and the politicians they boost are not supposed to consort with each other while in the process of scratching each other’s backs.

“On Aug. 18, 2007,” according to the Greenwich Times, “Murphy married Catherine Holahan at the Wake Robin Inn in Lakeville, according to the couple's wedding announcement in the New York Times, which noted that the ceremony was officiated by Ellen Ash Peters, a retired chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court…

“Murphy mouthpiece Ben Marter dismissed the McMahon campaign's notion of collusion, characterizing it as nothing more than innuendo.

"’Chris didn't ask these guys to do this, and we don't have any control over what they do," Marter said. ‘We're focused on the things we can control: our campaign, our message, and our unparalleled and growing grassroots organization.’"

Shays’ Swan Song

In an interview following his last primary debate with Linda McMahon, former U.S. Rep Chris Shays whispered a Swan’s song, a stark admission that the debate just concluded very well might be his last: “It may be the last time, and I think that would be a loss for the state.”

According to the most recent poll, Mr. Shays entered the debate trailing Mrs. McMahon by 29 points, a lead put down by Mrs. McMahon’s critics to her money advantage, which is considerable.

During her last campaign for the U.S. Senate, Mrs. McMahon poured $50 million of the sweat of her own brow into her campaign against then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Mr. Blumenthal prevailed in that race, even though he was hobbled by charges that he had lied several times concerning his military service. It was an easy matter for Mr. Blumenthal to deflect these charges: He hit the mattresses towards the end of his campaign, after it had become apparent that he had stolen valor from Vietnam veterans, having claimed falsely several times that he had served in Vietnam. The most amusing of Mr. Blumenthal’s pants-on-fire escape from media scrutiny was recorded by the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) in a documentary on stolen valor called “Frauds and Impostors.” For curious yellow Blumenthalites, the video still may be found on the ABC news site “Foreign Correspondent.” Hit "Play video" to watch.

It was thought at the time that Mrs. McMahon’s Republican Primary opponent, Rob Simmons, might have exploited the issue more effectively than Mrs. McMahon. Mr. Simmons background in Vietnam, where he served with distinction -- while Mr. Blumenthal was in Washington D.C. in the reserves, never having seen service in Vietnam – his years of honorable service in the U.S. House of Representatives, and his unflinchingly honest character, would have made him, so his supporters claimed, a much more effective foil in a general election contest against an artfully dogging Blumenthal.

This reading of events, while it may be true, falls far short of a competent analysis. After years of attorney general agitprop – rare was the day that reporters and editors did not find in their e-mails a press release written by a Blumenthal flack praising the attorney general in terms that would make a saint blush -- Mr. Blumenthal had established, shall we say, a cordial relationship with those in Connecticut who buy ink by the barrel. When Mr. Blumenthal chose to hit the mattresses towards the end of his campaign, after polls showed him with a more than comfortable lead over Mrs. McMahon, there were few if any remonstrances issued by Connecticut’s Commentariate. No one shouted from the rooftops that Mr. Blumenthal was avoiding his very few critics in the media.

Mr. Simmons may not have prevailed over Mr. Blumenthal.

Why?

Mr. Simmons would not have had the resources, money being among the most important, to defeat Mr. Blumenthal, who was and is – dare it be said? – a millionaire. Money may not be everything in a political campaign, but it ain’t nothing.

Mr. Simmons’ primary campaign sputtered and flamed out for want of money. Mr. Shays has no money, and very little support among Republicans to wage a successful primary campaign against Mrs. McMahon. There is sound reason to believe that this defect would extend to a general election campaign against Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate Chris Murphy, who is, monetarily speaking, sitting pretty.

Mr. Murphy, who has pinned to his chest the progressive red badge of courage and as such would seem to be the natural political enemy of large institutions, has received from the employees and PACs of financial institutions $754,885 since 2006, an average of $188,500 in his four federal races, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Here is the key question: Why is Mr. Murphy better able than Mr. Shays to generate funds necessary to win a political campaign?

Answer: Campaign finance reform – i.e. McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan – has altered the campaign resource playing field to such an extent that it is virtually impossible for a non-incumbent without independent means to win a campaign against any incumbent. A truly level playing field requires challengers to expend MORE money than incumbents in order to overcome other advantages enjoyed by the ruling regime. McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan, a SuperPAC spawning bill, simply bleeds money from parties and shuttles it to “independent” candidates, usually incumbents.

The enfeeblement of parties –They are too weak; not too strong – has made it possible for incumbents to become their own petite INDEPENDENT political parties. That’s why the Republican Party in CT cannot give monetary support to their – wink, wink – preferred MODERATE Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Chris Shays. How could Connecticut’s media have failed to notice that Karl Rove’s endorsement of Shays was not accompanied by a pledge of monetary support in the all-important primary? Unlike the Republican party in Connecticut, Mr. Rove’s SuperPAC is flush with funds.

So is Linda McMahon – but it’s her own money. Mr. Shays is the poor country mouse in the primary. HE HAS NO MONEY TO RUN ADS. Against Democratic Party endorsed candidate Chis Murphy, rich in campaign resources, Mr. Shays would continue to run a shoe string campaign -- and lose, even if he were able to gain the support of the state’s putatively moderate, “non-partisan”media, which is doubtful.

Mr. Murphy is Jim Himes on steroids. Ironically, Shays-Meehan has become Shays’ petard. And the pitiful primary “battle” shows him being raised up by it.

Mr. Shay’s signature campaign finance reform bill prevents money from reaching political parties. And after a Supreme Court ruling on First Amendment rights that opened the sluice gates to SuperPACs, state parties have become poor – like Mr. Shays – and campaign financiers who have no attachments to state parties are free to determine which candidates shall win or lose by extending or withholding funds.

Because the Supreme Court decision is soundly based in constitutional law, it will not likely be reversed. The fix to this problem therefore lies in the reform of national and state campaign finance laws. An effective reform would prevent the influx of money to SuperPACS by allowing the unimpeded flow of money, perhaps anonymously, into national and state parties.

This solution, of course, will depend on the acquiescence of SuperPAC dependent incumbents such as … well, Mr. Murphy, who used to inveigh against SuperPACs before he entered into a Faustian bargain with them.

McMahon And Shays At UConn

After the debate at UConn between Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate Chris Shays and Linda McMahon, Mr. Shays, who mounted the stage favored by Connecticut’s left of center media, temporarily lost a few votes within the journalistic community.
David Collins of the Day in New London wrote:

“McMahon did so much better in Thursday's debate that it makes you wonder why she isn't the one calling for more debates in the primary campaign, not Shays…

“Shays looked every bit as testy, annoyed and frustrated at the end as when the debate started…”

“Shays on Thursday just seemed kind of mean-spirited.”

Mr. Shays’testiness began, Mr. Collins noted, with a microphone malfunction.

“In fact, Shays threw a bit of a tantrum at the outset when there was a problem with the auditorium sound system at the University of Connecticut.

“He snapped a terse ‘no’ when offered a handheld microphone, saying everyone should just wait until the wireless microphones were fixed. Everyone did wait.

“Then, once the debate was under way, the former congressman turned irritable again every time McMahon ducked one of his insults about her tenure as head of World Wrestling Entertainment, as if she were somehow approaching him with a WWE handheld microphone.”

It may not be the case that Mr. Shays’ testiness arose from annoyance at the thought that “someone who peddled TV trash would take a Senate seat he considers his due.” Mr. Shays does not strike most people who know him well as the prototypical arrogant politician. In politics, however, appearances are perceived as reality. More likely, the former U.S. Representative wished to communicate his personal distaste with the raunch exhibited at some past World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) events. This distaste may have appeared as arrogance to some in the audience. Perhaps Mr. Shays could use a new debate coach.
The first rule of debate is this: When the audience has come to see a public debate, you’d best give then a debate rather than a public thrashing.

At the Hartford Courant, Rick Green scored the debate a win for Mrs. McMahon:

“But the lasting image of Linda McMahon is a candidate who stuck to her talking points and who brought the discussion back to the economy whenever Shays went nuclear. Because of that, she didn’t lose. For a candidate with a big lead, that’s all that matters. And with only one more debate scheduled, she’s more than half way to the nomination.”

The Shays camp is making fatal errors based on a few misleading theories.

The notion that Mrs. McMahon can buy elections with her personal fortune was put to flight during her last run for the U.S. Senate in a contest with then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who won U.S. Senator Chris Dodd’s vacant seat after Mrs. McMahon spent an inordinate amount of money -- $50 million in round numbers – attempting to defeat him. You cannot plausibly argue that Mrs. McMahon can buy a U.S Senate seat with money alone in the face of such a rout without appearing to be the much derided “used car salesman” of ancient memory.

It is not true that Mr. Shays can prevail over Mrs. McMahon by harnessing WWE thunderbolts deployed effectively by Mr. Blumenthal in his campaign. Every campaign is different and, whatever virtues he may possess, Mr. Shays is no Mr. Blumenthal. Neither is U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, the likely Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat, Mr. Blumenthal. When you change the characterization in a play, you end up with a different narrative. Even Mrs. McMahon is not the same performer she was in her earlier campaign, and the differences were noticed in her most recent debate by commentators fully prepared to support Mr. Shays.

Some commentators remarked that Mrs. McMahon during her debate was well “scripted,” a devil word usually employed by opponents to suggest that there is no “there” there. But the absence of a “there” was not at all apparent during the UConn debate.

Why?

Mr. Shays, content to hurl flaccid thunderbolts, did not confront Mrs. McMahon on her program – which is detailed and thoroughly assimilated. Mrs. McMahon is not simply saying her lines trippingly on the tongue. Her program is an authentic reflection of her own passionately held views. And Mrs. McMahon is not the wooden, empty headed WWE bugaboo displayed in scores of reports written by left of center progressively inclined commentators whose dearest wish is that Mr. Murphy will not make the same mistakes made by Mr. Shays in his UConn debate with Mrs. McMahon.

The Unbought Republican Nominating Convention

The hullaballoo that arose the last time Linda McMahon ran for the U.S. Senate against the sainted and irreproachable Attorney GeneralRichard Blumenthal was that the lady was attempting to buy the election.

She did spend $50 million, mostly on campaign literature and salaries for overpriced advisors, and the wife of then Republican campaign chairman Chris Healy was on her staff. Moreover, the lady had minimal political experience, and yet here she was attempting to leap into the U.S. Congressional pool where she would be swimming with such congressional sharks as former U.S. Senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd, who following his retirement flew off to Hollywood, there to become Tinseltown’s chief lobbyist, after having assured everyone that he would never – no, never – become a lobbyist.

Mr. Dodd himself leapt into the U.S. Congress without much political experience under his belt. He served as a volunteer in the Peace Corp, Dominican Republic chapter, from 1966 to 1968, joined the Army Reserve, serving until 1975, thus avoiding active duty service in Viet Nam, and was swept into Congress as a part of the "Watergate Class of '74." Mr. Dodd’s political lineage as the son of former U.S Senator Tom Dodd gave him an edge over his competitors that even the $50 million squandered by Mrs. McMahon could not buy.

As everyone knows, Mrs. McMahon, having secured the nomination of the Republican convention, lost her last campaign for the Senate to Mr. Blumenthal. Though Mrs. McMahon had a money advantage over Mr. Blumenthal, also millionaire from Greenwich, Mr. Blumenthal clearly had a media advantage over Mrs. McMahon. So frequent were Mr. Blumenthal’s press availabilities during his 20 year run as Attorney General that they gave rise to the often heard remark: there is no more dangerous spot in Connecticut than that between a TV camera and Mr. Blumenthal. In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal has lost a great deal of his state notoriety sheen.

It is not at all surprising that Connecticut’s media, working cheek by jowl for decades with a left of center Democratic majority, has taken on a blue tincture. Not so much unfair as unwilling to operate out of the usual incumbent box, the media presents a problem for most minority candidates who fall to the right of, say, former U.S. Senator Chis Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul, or U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, who reconfigured as an Independent after having served social liberals in the senate for more than 20 years. Mr. Lieberman was dumped by the Democratic Party in a primary, purportedly for conspiring with the enemy. He endorsed U.S. Senator John McCain for president and, though vowing to decouple himself from the current struggle for his seat, has professed warm feeling for former U.S. Representative Chis Shays, a congressional colleague of long standing.

This time around, Mrs. McMahon will face a tough primary opponent in Mr. Shays. The McMahon-Shays tousle has a déjà vu all over again scent to it. Mrs. McMahon’s last Republican Party primary opponent was former U.S. Representative Rob Simmons, whose campaign blinked on and off because Mr. Simmons, thought by some a tougher opponent of Mr. Blumenthal, was conserving his campaign cash. Despite the Democratic Party howl raised against Republicans as being the party of the rich, Republican state parties that have lost to Democrats the bulk of their moderate front line troops are the poor cousins of politics. During the last election, U.S. Rep John Larson, who holds the safest seat this side of Beijing, China, outspend his Republican Party opponent by a ratio of $7,871to $1.

Should Mrs. McMahon survive Mr. Shays in a primary, she will likely face the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate, current U.S. Representative Chris Murphy who, whatever his political merits, is no Dick Blumenthal. So teflon-proof was Mr. Blumenthal that he was able to survive a stolen valor charge that he had several times falsely claimed active service in Vietnam. Frequent media availabilities over a twenty year period in Connecticut politics do have their advantages.

The redoubtable Susan Bysiewicz will be a tough primary opponent for Mr. Murphy, driving him leftward in a state seemingly beginning to show a bit of buyer’s remorse over the hard-charging, sweet talking President Barack Obama.

At the conclusion of the Republican Party nominating convention, Mrs. McMahon received 61 percent of the delegate vote; Mr. Shays, who distained to ask delegates to vote for him and vowed prior to the convention to engage in a primary, received a more slender 32 percent. Mrs. McMahon’s advantage in delegate votes was the result of superior hustle. At the opening of the convention, Mrs. McMahon produced a list of supporters that included 95 Republican Town Chairs, 33 Republican Town Vice Chairs, 20 Republican Town Secretaries and 13 Republican Town Treasures, more than 250 “grass roots leaders,” she said in a press release. The lady put some miles on her boots to earn such support.

These figures, however, will not be sufficient to convince hard boiled opponents that Mrs. McMahon did not BUY the convention. Watch for it.