Dean Enters The Gubernatorial Race

Attorney Martha Dean – Colin McEnroe calls her “old blue eyes”  – is the equivalent in Connecticut of Sarah Palin nationally, the woman from the wrong side of the political tracks who those fighting the “war against women” love to denigrate. The abhorrence is palpable, and possibly a bit misogynistic. Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green, recently departed to Vermont, way back in June 2010 referred to Ms. Dean as “a heat-seeking Republican missile” and “the blonde gunslinger.” Captivated by the color of her eyes, Mr. Green referred with disdain to the “cyborg-like quality to Dean's tractor-beam blue eyes.” The “blonde gunslinger,” it is well known, regards the U.S. Constitution with some reverence, and this appears to have excited Mr. Green’s barely concealed contempt.

The difference between Mrs. Palin and Ms. Dean is that Ms. Dean is brighter, a more accomplished rhetorician, and, according to Mr. McEnroe, a trifle dangerous: “… I know it’s not a good day when you find out you gotta run against Martha.

Ms. Dean had barely announced her run for governor whenshe was set upon by the usual crowd. Isn't this the Martha Dean who serves as a lawyer to the sort of gun groups Governor Dannel Malloy and Connecticut’s gun-phobic General Assembly had chased out of state to South Carolina? Yup, she’s the one. Isn’t she the bible thumping, constitution hugging lady who ran on her Facebook page a clip affirming that Adam Lanza’s murderous rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary school was a hoax?

No, not really. The clip did appear on Ms. Dean’s Facebook page. It served principally as an example of what may happen in the sometimes wacky conspiratorial theory community when releasable information is withheld by investigators for more than a year after the commission of a mass murder.

Some of the conspiracy theories might easily have been disproved by the early release of known data that would not have compromised a seeming endless criminal investigation. For instance, one of the conspiratorial theories involved the presence of a second shooter – actually a man discovered running near the crime scene and detained for questioning by police, who knew moments after questioning him that he was not a participant in the crime.

Another theory revolved around the notion that the rifle used by Adam Lanza was not an AR15. A grainy shot showed police removing what was misidentified as an AR15 from the trunk of a car; the rifle was a shotgun Mr. Lanza brought with him to the slaughter. Information of this kind could have been released immediately without damaging a prospective investigation. The lack of accurate data is the breeding ground of conspiracy theories, nearly all of which easily could have been dispelled at news conferences.

No, the murderer was not, as was mistakenly reported, Ryan Lanza. Yes, there was only one shooter. Yes, that shooter was Adam Lanza. Yes, first responders did not immediately enter the school, though they arrived as reports of shots fired were being beamed over police radios, a datum that did not become available for public consumption until the publication of Danbury State Attorney Steven Sedensky’s criminal report,  which was issued a year after the crime.

Facebook is used by most reporters and commentators to file items collected for future reference, or to elicit comments, and the appearance of a report on Facebook certainly does not signify assent to the report.

In an interview with Dennis House on “Face the State” almost immediately after the posting of the video, Ms. Dean said “I do not endorse it” (the video). She said that media misinformation “invited conspiracy theories.” She denounced the possibility that the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School had not occurred, saying it was “ridiculous to raise the possibility they (the children) weren’t (murdered).” Asked, “Has there been a cover-up?” Ms. Dean replied “I have no reason to believe there was.”

All these direct quotes are readily available to any reporter or commentator with a computer who may be inclined to suggest erroneously in stories or commentary that Ms. Dean herself ever seriously entertained the notion that the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax.

Foley’s Charges

Here is an accurate transcript of a conversation between Dennis House of Face the State and former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley. Mr. Foley hopes to secure the Republican Party’s nomination for governor. Neither Mr. Foley nor Governor Dannel Malloy has as yet formally announced their respective bids for the governor’s office.

A great deal of commentary – most of it critical of Mr. Foley’s comments -- already has preceded the posting of a transcript. But it’s always a good idea to put first things first: First the transcript, then the commentary:

DH: You also said something rather provocative on Tuesday. You suggested that the governor may be trading favors and when a reporter asked you for specifics, you did not. Can you do that today?

TF: Yeah, absolutely. You know last spring I was working with Senator Markley to introduce a bill to raise the ethical standards at the Capitol. And I've just been really disappointed by what goes on at the capitol and what I've learned about the relationships up there, the conflicts of interest. I’m concerned and in some ways disgusted, and I think the governor in some ways contributed this. I think he had an opportunity when he was elected to talk about transparency and to set a standard, and he hasn't. In fact, he may have taken it to a new level, so…

DH: What kind of examples can you offer us today?

TF: Well, first of all, I’ll give you some examples, but first let me preface it by saying I’m not a news organization. I don’t have a staff to look into these things and investigate them. But these are all things that have been told to me by more than one reliable source, and so it meets a journalistic standard. And they’re things that are believed, so they’re a problem whether they’re true or not. It seems that there are (sic) some substance to them, but I can’t confirm that they’re true. So, let me give you some examples.  Umm, Dan Esty. Dan Esty is the head of a consulting firm…

DH: The Commissioner of DEEP…

TF: Yeah, he is now. But this is going back before the election. And it’s believed, or I've heard, a lot of people believe, that at his consulting firm, Esty…. Umm, Environmental Partners, I believe it’s called, or some entity that he controls, was compensating Dan Malloy…

DH: As a candidate?

TF: Well, not as a candidate, but either with consulting fees or compensation or something of value. And in fact it was not a (unintelligible), so that’s a problem in itself. So, this might have been prior to his declaring himself a candidate or during the time he was a candidate. (Unintelligible) I hope not, I don’t know. So, as soon as Governor Malloy is elected, he’s made a commissioner of DEEP. So, to me, that’s improper. It’s a conflict of interest; it’s a favor for something that was done. And in that instance, if that was the case, that potentially is an illegal contribution. When I ran against Governor Malloy, he was fully engaged in the race. So there was no way he was performing any work for Mr. Esty, if he was being paid anything. So it was… should have been a contribution if it was during the campaign. So anyhow, this is something I've heard and that people believe. I welcome the governor coming out and explaining, saying either that it’s not true, or explaining that it’s different from what I am describing.  So let me give you another one. Roy Occhiogrosso. You know Roy huh?

DH: Oh yeah.

TF: He was the governor’s campaign manager and, I think, ran communications and was a spokesman in the administration. Earlier this year, Roy Occhiogrosso left the administration and went back to his political consulting firm, the Global Strategies group. And very recently, they’re awarded a very significant contract to handle, I believe, communications and PR for the Health Exchange for the state, which is a quasi-government entity, but their website is “pt.gov,” so clearly a government entity. Totally improper, if this is the case of what happened, to me, that somebody leaves the administration and turns around and within a very short period of time a company that he’s a partner in receives a very lucrative government contract. Umm, Andrew McDonald, a very close buddy of the governor, now on our Supreme Court, was a partner in a law firm called Sullivan and… excuse me, (Pullman and Comley), and they do a lot of legal work for the municipalities that issue bonds. It is commonly believed among first selectmen that I know that if you don’t use Pullman and Comley for your bond issue, it's much less likely that the governor is going to approve it, and he has sole authority to approve all bond issues. And so they tend to use that firm to make sure that their bond offering goes through. Whether that’s true or not, the mere perception that that’s the case is creating a distortion in moving business to a firm improperly. Finally, I got one more. Do you want to know…

DH: No, go ahead…

TF: It’s been publicly reported that there’s been issues with the governor’s travels. He took two trips to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland -- It’s quite an expensive trip -- and another trip to China. And it’s publicly reported, and I think the governor’s office has publicly admitted that some of the expenses of this trip was (sic) paid by the UConn Foundation. The UConn foundation is primarily a private funded organization. People who make those kinds of contributions assume that they are providing money for UConn, for the education of the students at UConn and making the program as good as it can be. It’s an improper use of the funds. And I also understand that at least one board member was called by a very senior member of the administration. A lot of pressure was put on them, and they were (sic) reluctantly agreed to provide these funds. So these are examples of things that I consider improper. If I were governor, no one would even think these things were possible, because would set a standard that was so high that even the perception of a conflict, or a friend, or someone in your family getting business as a result of your holding office wouldn't be believed.

DH: We obviously don‘t have the staff here at Face the State to confirm these allegations in the course of this program. I’ll obviously have to look into them. Are there any names of first selectmen and selectwomen you can offer who have made these allegations to you?

TF: Not that I want to share. Obviously, I wouldn't want to share. But there’s more than one; let me just say that. And let me also say that I call on the governor to address these issues, because if they… I hope they’re actually not true, because it would be good for the citizens of Connecticut if they were not true. But these are things that are commonly accepted at the Capitol as being true. And people are: Oh, that’s just the way things are around here, or that’s the way the governor does business.  I think the governor should come out and explain to us whether or not these things that people believe are true. And if they are, and if here’s an explanation for them that would make sense to reasonable people, explain that too. And if he doesn't, I hope the media will go and look into these things. The media has the resources; that’s one of their roles. And let’s get to the bottom of this.

DH: [Well, certainly after this] we’ll look into the allegations. And I know that other reporters certainly will who are watching this program. If these turn out to be false, these allegations, do you think it damages your credibility as a candidate?

TF: No, because I think that the perception that this administration does not have high ethical standards, that favors are being done for friends and family, is there. And the mere fact that it’s there is a problem, whether these things are happening or not, and a good leader doesn't allow that perception to exist. They set a standard, and their own behavior makes people understand that these things couldn't be true. So, if I were governor, no one would be believing these things about my administration.

DH: Do you believe Dannel Malloy to be an unethical governor?

TF: Well, if these things are true, he certainly has a very low ethical standard. Some of these things may or may not be illegal, but they certainly, to me, get nowhere near the threshold of solid leadership and ethical standards that should be present in Connecticut’s government.

The commentary so far is pretty much what might be expected from a media that is left of center and overly protective of Governor Dannel Malloy. The chief concern of a media that lists to the left lies in shoring up the left.

Some commentators may take Mr. Foley’s remark that his representations during the face the State interview met a “journalistic standard” as very far from the mark. But it is clear from his remarks that Mr. Foley was addressing the standard of a “plausible charge.” He said he had more than one unidentified “reliable source,” and the charges, as he outlined them, were far from amorphous. Indeed, they were specific enough to arouse the wrath of Malloyalists both inside and outside Democratic Party precincts.

The preface to Mr. Foley’s charges is not unimportant: “Well, first of all, I’ll give you some examples, but first let me preface it by saying I’m not a news organization. I don’t have a staff to look into these things and investigate them. But these are all things that have been told to me by more than one reliable source, and so it meets a journalistic standard. And they’re things that are believed, so they’re a problem whether they’re true or not. It seems that there are (sic) some substance to them, but I can’t confirm that they’re true.”

Mr. Foley here is not playing the part of a lawyer prosecuting a case. He is issuing an invitation to the media to take up and investigate assumed improprieties.

Now, a charge of impropriety must begin somewhere. Charges at the beginning of an investigation must meet a standard of plausibility; certitude concerning the charge follows an exhaustive ongoing investigation.

Here’s an example: Before anyone in Connecticut was certain that former Governor John Rowland had committed improprieties, there were rumors of improprieties circulating throughout the General Assembly.  Some plausible charges were tossed on the desktop of a number of investigative reporters, reporters pursued leads and an official investigation was opened at the conclusion of which Mr. Rowland pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to steal honest services. No reporter in the state refused to investigate the presumed improprieties swirling about Mr. Rowland because they were mere unproven allegations.

Here are the first two paragraphs in a story covering Mr. Foley’s face the State appearance:

“Escalating his attack in a campaign that technically hasn't begun, Republican Tom Foley blasted Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Sunday as a chronically unethical leader.

“Foley, who says he has not yet decided whether he is running for governor, offered a blistering, unsubstantiated, indictment of Malloy as running an administration of back-slapping insiders ‘getting special deals.’ Appearing on WFSB's ‘Face the State’ Sunday morning, Foley declined to offer on-the-record evidence to back up his charges, saying that his allegations meet ‘journalistic standards.’"

Well now, a charge made by one politician of another is very far removed from an “indictment,” a legal term that presupposes a definitive investigation. Legal indictments generally are presented by legally convened and sworn grand juries that have considered and passed on evidence preceding a trial. All pre-investigatory charges are by definition “unsubstantiated.”

At this point, Mr. Foley has merely challenged Mr. Malloy to answer his charges: “And let me also say that I call on the governor to address these issues.”  He acknowledges he has not the resources of a newspaper at his command: “Well, first of all, I’ll give you some examples, but first let me preface it by saying I’m not a news organization. I don’t have a staff to look into these things and investigate them.” He hopes the rumors and innuendos are not true: “I hope they’re actually not true, because it would be good for the citizens of Connecticut if they were not true.” But he cannot deny that the charges, if true, are consequential.  At the very least, the charges made by Mr. Foley rise to a level above that of water cooler gossip, but his repeated pleadings that the media should investigate what one reporter dismissively termed “back-slapping insiders ‘getting special deals’” is infused with the desperation of a man who senses that Connecticut’s investigatory apparatus will not oblige him.       

House Grills Donovan

“Embattled” is a word you do not want waltzing around with your name on the eve of a U.S. Congressional election. “Embattled 5th District Congress candidate Chris Donovan,” the Register Citizen reported, “in a taping of WFSB TV’s ‘Face the State’ Thursday, said he has no plans to quit the race even if his campaign’s troubles start to adversely affect other Democrats and party leaders urge him to leave.

Mr. Donovan is under scrutiny by the FBI for campaign financing irregularities. His campaign finance director, Robert Braddock, is under arrest for having conspired to hide the identity of certain donors allegedly involved in influence peddling; and other Donovan connected officials, two of whom are directly connected with his U.S. Senate campaign, have been named in an affidavit supporting the arrest of Mr. Braddock.

Thanks to some impressive digging and nagging by manyreporters, the influence peddlers –tagged anonymously in the affidavit as CC1, CC2 and CC3 -- have now been identified as: Ray Soucy, a labor union activist and a vigorous supporter of Mr. Donovan lately suspended from his position as a correction industries supervisor at Cheshire state prison (CC1); a former “roll your own” smoke shop worker in Waterbury (CC2); and Joshua Nassi, Mr. Donovan’s fired campaign manager (CC3).

As the story unfolded, an uppity Governor Dannell Malloy, who has managed to shove his finger in many political and judicial pies, at first called upon Mr. Dovovan to make himself available to Connecticut’s media for questioning, demanding in rather stern tones that Mr. Donovan give “a full explanation of what he knows." Eventually, the governor calmed down.

Mr. Donovan and all the co-conspirators promptly lawyered-up. Stan Twardy, best known for his service in the administration of former Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s income tax, was hauled in to conduct an in-house examination of the tangled web in the House Speaker’s office. Mr. Donovan hired a criminal lawyer, who advised her client that he was to respond to every media inquiry concerning the FBI investigation by saying he did not intend to comment on such matters, except to say, as he did repeatedly during the interview with Mr. House, that he was innocent of wrongdoing.

Apparently content that Mr. Donovan had done everything possible to satisfy the curiosity of Connecticut’s media – the same persistent interrogators who had forced the resignation from office of former Republican state Senate leader Lou DeLuca in a previous FBI sting operation-- Mr. Malloy, once an empathetic prosecutor, took a nap, convinced that Mr. Donovan had sufficiently teffloned himself. If Mr. Donovan were to excite among senators and the media the same sense of outrage that nudged Mr. DeLuca from office, the General Assembly would be burbling at this moment with whispers of hearings and impeachment.

"He's met the test of dismissing the individuals,” the governor said of Mr. Donovan.“He has said he had no prior knowledge. He's come forward to speak to the public," Malloy said. "I think the rest of it is up to the speaker and the public” … And Mr. House, who found himself face to face on Face the State with a political armadillo.

When Mr. House noted that neither the governor nor U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, whose seat Mr. Donovan hoped to commandeer, had endorsed him, the Speaker replied that Mr. Malloy was drawn to his Democratic primary opponent Elizabeth Esty, whose husband Daniel is Mr. Malloy’s Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), and then he tossed Harry Truman at Mr. House: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

Off in the distance, Leo Canty, one of the best know union operatives in the state, could be heard chanting, “There’s always people and events that will trip you up. This is just a slight trip in this race. … This is a hiccup and a glitch.” At an earlier union rally in Hartford, Mr. Donovan invoked the shade of Franklin Roosevelt.

“’I have my head held high. No one bought my involvement or my influence on any legislation, period,’ the embattled Speaker said. Touching on the controversy only in passing, Mr. Donovan said he wanted to talk about “fairness, dignity, respect. You take the first letter of each of them and what you get?-- ‘FDR.’”

Mr. Donovan boasted to Mr. House that he would win his primary against his two Democratic opponents, neither of whom is under investigation for possible influence peddling. When Mr. House gently prodded the Speaker, asking what would happen to his best laid plans should he be arrested, Mr. Donovan, according to Mr. House, “bristled.”

Murphy’s Line In The Sand

Appearing on “Face the State” with Dennis House, U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, who has announced his candidacy for Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat, passionately defended an administrative edict that would require members of some religious faiths to commit what boilerplate secularists and practical atheists winkingly call “sin.”

“We need to draw a line in the sand,” Mr. Murphy told Mr. House. “Enough is enough, a women, where ever she works, has a right to a full range of reproductive health care; that should be the law of the land.”

It may have escaped Mr. Murphy’s notice that the edict promulgated by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius forcing religious affiliated institutions, hospitals and schools among them, to dispense contraceptives, some of which are abortifacients, and to offer sterilization under the so called "Affordable Care Act” is not a LAW in the strict sense. Congress has not written a bill that when signed by the president becomes a law compelling orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims to choose between their religious obligations and their duties as citizens. As a plus for legislators, Government by edict spares vote conscious politicians the embarrassing necessity of putting their fingerprints on bills that may induce a “no” vote during election season.

President Obama’s administrative edict does not go quite so far as Mr. Murphy’s “line in the sand” non-negotiable demand.

Nuns, for instance, are women who associate with churches, and yet the administrative edict does not require their employers to supply them with birth control pills, contraceptives and morning after abortifacients. Under Mr. Murphy’s line in the sand rule, even nuns would have a right to the full range of options supplied by Planned Parenthood, and employers who balked at providing them with such “health services” would be subject to crippling fines. Mr. Obama’s administrative edict imposes obligations, the news media continually tells us, not on “churches” as such but on religious people working in businesses associated with religious institutions. The opposition to the administrative edict from Catholic hospitals, for instance, has been very insistent, and those who argue that constitutionally protected religious rights inhere in people rather than administrative instruments such as churches do after all have a point.

Mr. Murphy perhaps will agree that drawn lines, must pass constitutional muster. And then too there is that little impediment in the First Amendment preventing congress from passing laws that infringe upon “the exercise of religion.” Mr. Murphy is familiar with this clause because he has passionately invoked it in the past on other occasions.

When Lowes home goods stores pulled their ads from a TV program called “All American Muslim,” Mr. Murphy took to the well of the House to condemn Lowes’ anti-religious bias:

“Murphy: This is a major American company rubberstamping basic foundational bigotry against a major American religious group. This nation was founded on the premise of religious freedom, and this body should never remain silent when a group of people is marginalized just because they worship a different God. And though we certainly have got more important things to worry about -- like the economy – it’s traditionally during bad economic times that this kind of social marginalization has been at its worst, because people don’t speak up against it.”



Mr. Murphy also opened a rhetorical front on (Keith) Olbermann’s program,

“Olberman: How important is this issue to freedom of expression in this country?

“Murphy: Well listen, there’s nothing more basic to the founding of America than that you can come here and practice whatever religion you choose. And the fact is that this latest action [the withdrawal of a Lowes ad from the television program “All American Muslim”] is part of a really troubling pattern of running mosques out of town, of stopping people from teaching the history of Islamic nations in schools. You know, we used to celebrate the fact that you could practice any religion that you wanted in this country. It is a complete re-write of the strongest part of American history to allow this kind of garbage to continue. Look, Lowes is a good American company. Umm… this is way out of step with their commitment to the community we live in, and that’s why I still have maybe this unrepentant optimism that they’re gonna change their mind.”



Mr. Murphy’s is a fulsome defense of the historic posture of federal and state governments towards religion in the United States that even a Catholic Bishop might endorse. It is true the Catholic Church has more theological skin in this political game than other faiths, but it would be a fatal mistake should other religious faiths assume that an edict dismantling Catholic theology would leave them untouched. Jews, Protestants and Muslims, a sometimes scorned profession hotly defended by Mr. Murphy numerous times on constitutional grounds, also provide educational and social services.

Yet one would wrongly suppose that a fervid First Amendment supporting Non-Denominational Christian such as Mr. Murphy would readily understand that an administrative rule, possibly unconstitutional and certainly hostile to the American consensus on religion, that attacks one faith is an assault on all faiths. Ardently supporting the Obama administration’s rule, Mr. Murphy patronizingly claims, “I certainly have a lot of sympathy for the church's argument, but if you're talking about Catholic hospitals and universities, these are institutions that are integrated into the community and [have] public funding streams ... [they] have already crossed the firm boundary between church and state.''

Chris Shays’ Face The State Appearance With Dennis House: Keeping It Real

In the course of his interview with former State Rep. Chris Shays, host of Face the State Dennis House pressed Mr. Shays on a series of issues. A transcript of portions of the interview follows below, accompanied by some Connecticut Commentary notes.

Dennis House (DH): So, you’re planning on a primary, regardless of the convention in May, right?

Chris Shays (CS): There will be a primary. If I win the convention, I assume others will want to primary; and if I don’t win the convention, I’m in a primary.

This is a pretty straightforward declaration of Shays’ intentions. It is not altogether certain that Linda McMahon would primary should Mr. Shays be declared the Republican convention nominee. In her last run for the U.S. Senate, Mrs. McMahon snatched the convention nomination from former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, who went on to wage an on-again off again campaign against her.

DH: If you lose in a primary, would you run as an independent?

CS: Well, I don’t think about losing, but I’m running as a Republican. And that is what I’ve always done. I have always been a Republican; have never been on another line, always helping my fellow Republicans in their elections, working harder for those I believe in, being respectful for those I am maybe not as excited about…

Mr. House was not satisfied with the non-answer. Independent campaigns are not unusual in Connecticut. Former Republican U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker, turned away by his party in a re-election campaign, later started his own party and ran for election as governor as an independent. Current Senator Joe Lieberman, who managed to defeat Mr. Weicker with some help from Weicker-whipped Republicans, later lost a primary campaign to Ned Lamont. Mr. Lieberman then went on to wage an independent campaign and retained his seat.

Mr. House tried again with a follow-up question.

DH: So, you’re ruling it out, a [potential] independent run?

CS: What I am saying to you is I can’t imagine doing that.

Mr. House pressed on.

DH: If Mrs. McMahon wins the primary, will you support her in the general election?

CS: Depends on how she wins it.

DH: What do you mean?

CS: Well, it depends if she runs an honest and fair race. If she attempts to do to me what she did to Rob Simmons, good luck. I mean, what she did to Rob Simmons was outrageous.

DH: You’re saying she was dishonest in that campaign?

CS: I’m saying what she did was outrageous – accusing him of being a big spender. This guy wasn’t a big spender – accusing him of a lot of things that he wasn’t, and not recognizing that he was a good and honorable man who served his country with incredible distinction. So, the answer to your question is: I don’t intend to lose. But the question will be: How do you conduct a race?

These charges require additional close questioning. Mr. Shays’ notion of outrageous campaign behavior is a little severe. There were no dramatic groin kicks in Mrs. McMahon's campaign against Mr. Simmons. Generally, one is not in the habit of bestowing compliments upon opponents in campaigns.

The Hartford Courant certainly was not in Mrs. McMahon’s corner before, during or after the Republican nominating convention. The paper’s report on the convention mentions no outrageous declarations damaging to Mr. Simmons on Mrs. McMahon’s part. The paper did note, however:

“The battle between Simmons and McMahon was notable for its acrimony. Simmons made character an issue, consistently questioning the sexually graphic and violent content promoted by the WWE, as well as the use of steroids within the industry.

“McMahon played up her outsider credentials. ‘Linda has not spent her life in politics,’ said Torrington Mayor Ryan Bingham, who seconded McMahon's nomination. ‘If the people of Connecticut want a career politician, they'd just send Chris Dodd back for a sixth term.’”

The paper also mentioned an uncharacteristic reversal in Mr. Simmons’ pledge not to pursue a primary should Mrs. McMahon win the Republican nomination.

“Throughout most of the campaign, Simmons had repeated stated his intention of dropping out of the race if he did not win the backing of convention delegates. But on Friday night [when Mrs. McMahon secured the nomination], Simmons said he would wage a primary.”

In a story filed a month earlier, the Courant noted that Mr. Simmons took up a cudgel Democrats had effectively weilded against Mrs. McMahon:

“After months of relying on campaign surrogates to attack chief rival Linda McMahon, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rob Simmons publicly questioned the character of the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, who is also seeking the GOP nomination.

“Simmons stood on the north steps of the state Capitol before a half-dozen reporters and cataloged what he called McMahon's lack of credibility and disrespect for the law. He blasted her for painting herself as a political outsider when her company has spent a million dollars on Washington lobbyists. He said her answer to a questionnaire in connection with her appointment to the State Board of Education constitutes a lie.


“And, most significantly, Simmons cited McMahon's role in a federal investigation into steroid use by professional wrestlers. According to a 1989 memo obtained by both The Day of New London and the Politico website, McMahon tipped off a Pennsylvania doctor about the impending investigation.

“Said Simmons, ‘These are the actions of someone who does not respect the law and it leaves one to ask the question: How can you write the laws if you don't feel bound by them?’

“McMahon was never charged with any crime in connection with the incident. McMahon spokesman Ed Patru accused Simmons of trading in ‘the politics of personal destruction’ and said his charges are a desperate move by a candidate whose public approval numbers had fallen sharply”

Mr. House was curious what a Shays campaign against his likely Democratic opponant, U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, might be like.

DH: What do you think of Congressman Chris Murphy in the race?

CS: You know what, you’ll have to ask him.

This answer visibly stunned Mr. House. His appropriate follow-up question has a “Say what?” flavor to it.

DH: Well, what do you think? You’re going to have to run against him.

CS: But you know what, I’m not going to talk about him. I’m not going to talk about … I’d be happy to tell you this: the job that the president has done, and the Democratic congress, has been outrageous…. We have a congress that is not facing up to what we have to do, and I put Chris Murphy in there with others.

Three possibilities suggest themselves: Either Mr. Shays had not yet had a chance to review Mr. Murphy’s record in office as a prelude to his campaign, perfectly understandable since Mr. Shays had only recently filed campaign papers; or Mr. Shays felt that any attack on Mr. Murphy would be, at this early point in his contest, premature; or he felt it would be strategically inappropriate to show his hand to Mr. Murphy before he disposed of Ms. McMahon either in the Republican nominating convention or in a primary.

DH: You were the last republican congressman in New England when you left. Do you think the state has gone too far left to elect another Republican?

CS: Oh, absolutely. The problem with this state is that it doesn’t understand economics; the legislature just doesn’t get it. They don’t understand they’re chasing away wealth. They don’t understand that they’re chasing away employers. We have not had a net job increase in 20 years.

It should be pointed out that Mr. Shays is answering only one barrel of Mr. Houses’ double barreled question. Mr. Shays does not “absolutely” believe that a Republican cannot be elected in a state that has drifted so far to the left; otherwise, he would not be putting himself to the trouble of waging either a nominating convention contest or a primary campaign against a Republican candidate who may or may not be chosen by the leaders of his party to represent them in the U.S. Congress. Given Mr. Shays' answers above to Mr. Houses' probing questions, one may assume Mr. Shays would be loathed to initiate an independent run for the senate. As a faithful long term Republican, Mr. Shays has strongly implied he would be reluctant to wage a campaign against he congressional nominee of his party.

Lieberman's Future

Four commentators – Duby McDowell of the Laurel , Rick Green of the Hartford Courant , Brian Flaherty, a former Republican state representative, and Tom Dudchik of Capitol Report -- got together several days ago at Dennis House’s house, Face the State on WFSB, to review the old year and plot Sen. Joe Lieberman’s future.

Poor Joe’s future, all agreed, was dismal.

Pretty much all House’s guests thought Mr. Lieberman MIGHT defend his seat, the senator having teased several reporters and commentators that a run was not altogether out of the question. The consensus appeared to be that Mr. Lieberman would not be nominated by his party; apparently, Rep. Chris Murphy has stolen the party’s heart, and progressive Democrats are especially hot on him, while their reaction to Mr. Lieberman has been considerably cooler.

Ever since Mr. Lieberman lost to progressive heart throb Ned Lamont in a previous Democratic Party primary, marching on to defeat the Great Progressive Hope in a general election, the left wing of the party has been in a flutter against Mr. Lieberman, its more insistent members sharpening their stakes, grinding their teeth and challenging the deathless vampire to run once again for office on THEIR ground. Go ahead – just go ahead. You’ll see.

Mr. Lieberman has been toying with them, playfully. The danger is that may hoist them in their own petard.

If the senator, pushed out of his party by Mr. Lamont in a primary and forced to run in the general election as independent, CANNOT run for the nomination in his former party – there are only two open questions: 1) Will he run? He’s such a tease; and 2) If he runs in what then likely would be a three way race involving Lieberman the independent, Murphy the beloved and a Republican nominee -- possibly Linda McMahon, who does not seems to have had her fill of politics, or Rob Simmons or some other aspiring Republican -- would Mr. Lieberman win?

The answer to this question is: Nobody knows. Events have a way of overturning the best laid plans of mice and men. But then the whole point of predicting the future is to speculate, loudly and bravely, on matters the answers to which one cannot know.

Perhaps it might be useful to back up a second and ask a somewhat different question: Would Lieberman’s chances of winning the pending general election in a three way race be better or worse if he did or did not force a primary with Murphy the beloved? This, after all, is how Mr. Lieberman won the general election race against Mr. Lamont – by smashing in a primary the lockstep hold in a general election Mr. Lamont expected to have on the party that nominated him.

Just a second, progressives will remonstrate. Mr. Lieberman the Vampire won the general election because the Republican candidate was, shall we say, inadequate, and Mr. Lieberman the Vampire had built up within the Republican Party a residual affection after he had defeated, with the party’s help, former senator and self proclaimed “turd in the Republican Party punchbowl” Lowell Weicker. These circumstances are not repeatable. In addition, Mr. Lieberman the Vampire has further alienated himself from his party by canoodling with the enemy, throwing his support behind a Republican Party presidential nominee at a time when Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama enjoyed wide national popularity. To be sure, the bloom is off the popularity rose now; former President George Bush and President Obama are running fairly close in popularity polls., But to have support McCain then! And he kissed Bush too! And he’s a vampire!

To all this one may cheerfully nod assent. Even so, in a free country in which primaries have for decades undetermined nominating conventions, anyone with a adrent will and a little spare cash can primary party nominees. Before Mr. Lamont, at the urging of progressives, leapt upon the stage to challenge Mr. Lieberman in a primary, Mr. Lieberman WAS the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate. Both former President Bill Clinton and then U.S. Sen. Dodd stumped for their party nominee on the primary campaign trail.

And so the question remains: Would Mr. Lieberman’s chance in winning a general election in a three way race, assuming he would consent to run in a three way race, be improved if he chose to primary the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the senate, Mr. Murphy?

The answer to that question is: Maybe. No one can be certain what tomorrow may bring. It seems only yesterday that former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd was a shoe in for re-election to the senate. And then a couple of shoes fell on his head. The only way to measure Mr. Lieberman’s strength or weakness within his own party many months out from today is to test his strength in a primary. And even then, the lay of the political land having changed, the probe may be telling – or not.

Himes, Courtney, Slip Sliding Away

Dennis House’s “The Hartforite" is reporting that Jim Himes and Joe Courtney, two representatives in districts less liberal than Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi, are inching away from Bethlehem:

“During a taping of Face the State, when I asked both Congressmen Jim Himes and Joe Courtney if they would endorse Pelosi for another term as their leader, they balked.

Neither were conspicuously present during President Barack Obama's visit to Connecticut in mid-September.

“The two are running for re-election in districts where Mr. Obama’s approval rating has fallen and unemployment is high. With an electorate becoming increasingly frustrated with Washington, Himes and Courtney are both stressing to voters that they are ‘independent voices.‘”

The word “independent,” a curtsey in the direction of the Tea Party Patriots and Independents who have expressed their dissatisfaction with the two major parties, is one we shall be hearing often on a campaign trail that, some believe, will lead to a valley of tears in November.