Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was violently attacked by the media of his day and responded with a more than adequate self defense, the “Apologia Pro Vita Sua,” used to say, “Throw enough dirt and some will stick – stick but not stain.” But Newman could not have been familiar with modern modes of politicking: UTube videos, blogs written by furious partisans, offshore political operations that are little more than "non-partisan" campaign finance producing operations in disguise, and sleepy eyed journalists, themselves partisan, who are willing to overlook their mud splattered political opponents. But a bright warning line ought to be drawn somewhere. An ad approved by embattled U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy that craftily connects Sam Caliguiri with former Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano throws a bucket of mud on Caliguri’s reputation. Mr. Murphy’s challenger is, after all, a politician and ought not to expect to remain unbloodied in a hotly contested political campaign. Even so, t...

It was Henry Clay who said he’d rather be right than be president. The cynic perhaps would retort that such a selfless sentiment could only issue from a man who had never been president; though, Lord knows, Mr. Clay, always ready to serve his country in any capacity, certainly gave it a good try. Drafted for president a few times, he was frustrated by unavoidable political events beyond his control and lost each time, some would say, to lesser men. A Whig leader in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, said Mr. Clay was "my beau ideal of a great man." And Sen. John Kennedy cited Mr. Clay as one of the five greatest senators in U.S. history. It must be supposed that Mr. Clay took his defeats with a certain degree of equinimity. Rob Simmons very well may be the Henry Clay of Connectiut. Mr. Clay’s Whig party, which later evolved into the Republican Party, was strong enough at that point and later to allow for what might be called “second acts” -- and even third and fourth acts. Th...

Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, is a knowledgeable observer of Connecticut politics whose column appears in that paper and a dozen others in Connecticut and the Providence Journal in Rhode Island. When Powell became managing editor of the JI in 1974, he was the youngest editor of any daily in the state. I must here acknowledge that I wrote a regular column for the JI for about 15 years when Powell was also editorial page editor, drawing from time to time on his unfailing political memory. Powell, who off-line is screamingly amusing, agreed to submit to an interview broadly focused on the U.S. Senate race featuring the Democratic incumbent, Chris Dodd, and a crew of ebullient Republicans. It is difficult to place Powell on the political spectrum except to say that he loves a good story and has a gift for poetic concision: "The General Assembly is little more than a nest of locusts. ..." I recall once describing Powell as a "rad...

There appears to be a lot of chatter among conservatives concerning Sen. Chris Dodd’s prospects for re-election. Most of them want a badly wounded Dodd to run for re-election. Independent voters, many of whom in Connecticut may be disgruntled Democrats, do not appear to be enchanted with Dodd’s re-election. Among what is amusingly thought of as the Democratic “base,” there are many activist bloggers who rather hope Dodd will see the light and step aside so that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, their designated replacement, may fill the senator’s large shoes, thus preserving the seat for those who frequently visit such sites as MyLeftNutmeg, a leftist commentariate watering hole. Dodd has made strenuous efforts to get on the right side of the left-most corner of the Democratic political barracks through targeted video opportunities. What are his prospects for re-election? Certainly they are not as bright as they were several years ago, when Republicans in the state were scourin...

The last collection of Bill Buckley’s columns, “Happy Days Were Here Again” (note the past tense), is subtitled “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.” The book is about pretty much everything that interested Buckley, which is to say – it’s about everything. But the subtitle is telling: “a libertarian journalist?” Who knew? Libertarianism has gotten a bad rap because it has been purposely, maliciously misunderstood, usually by pettifogging statists, the sort of people who believe that that the bread one earns by the sweat of one’s brow would be ever so much more tasty and nutritious if it fell to humankind like manna from heaven; or, better still, if it were first collected by demagogues in Washington DC and then parceled out to us, with a sizable bite taken by altruistic congresspersons, presidents and supreme court justices. The libertarian is the guy who thinks most of the bread should remain with the brow that sweats, which is not to say that the poor should be fed fr...

Sam Caligiuri, a second term state senator representing Connecticut’s 16th district – Southington, Wolcott, parts of Cheshire and Waterbury -- announced his run against U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd early in April, and in mid-August Caligiuri turned up at Coventry Town Hall to address the Republican Town Committee. Caligiuri is the deputy minority leader of the Senate Republican Caucus and serves on five legislative committees. He is the ranking member on both the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee and the Insurance and Real Estate Committee. In 2007, he earned the distinction of being the only state senator of either party to vote against the state budget, a matter of principle, according to Caligiuri. The budget exceeded the state’s spending cap and would lead, Caligiuri predicted, to insupportable state deficits. The legislatures’ penchant for spending surpluses, its leftward drift, the country’s collapsing national economy, and political inattentiveness to the signs of the times a...

Freshman state Sen. Sam Caligiuri voted against a compromise budget and by doing so became, in Henry David Thoreau’s phrase, “a party of one.” Caligiuri has said the spending increase in the biennial budget’s first year is too high. And he did not understand why the legislature was unable to cut taxes in the face of a $915 million surplus. "I think this is the best budget that we were able to put together given the political reality that we are facing,” Caligiuri said, “and let me also say that if it wasn't for Republican pressure, we would have tax increases today." The budget deal was an exercise in defusing extravagant hopes; some would say nightmarish dreams. The Democrats, as part of the deal struck with obdurate Republicans, gave up a potentially destructive refashioning of income tax – for the time being. Instead of producing a timely budget, Democrats this year spent their time and energy in seeking to make Connecticut’s not quite flat income tax more progressive....