Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Dan Roberti, a Democrat running for the U.S House in Connecticut’s 5th District has called upon Democratic Party nominee Chris Donovan to quit the race. "It is time for Chris Donovan to withdraw from the primary race for the good of the Connecticut Democratic Party and to protect the seat,” Mr. Roberti said following an indictment returned by a Grand Jury of Mr. Donovan’s former campaign director Robert Braddock. “He has hidden behind lawyers and never stepped up to explain how members of his campaign staff could have arranged conduit contributions without his knowledge." Following Mr. Roberti’s invitation to withdraw, Donovan campaign manager Tom Swan declared that Mr. Donovan remains, even after damning disclosures, the strongest Democrat in the race . Mr. Donovan was nominated at the Democratic convention for the 5 th District seat now occupied by U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated when pre...

The Devil, it is sometimes said, lies in the details. The Devil did not show his hand in the Twardy investigation of Speaker of the House Chris Donovan’s tawdry campaign for the U.S. House in Connecticut’s 5 th District. Mr. Donovan’s former finance director was arrested by the FBI in a sting operation in which straw contributors, the FBI showed in an arrest affidavit, violated campaign finance regulations. FBI investigators almost certainly are squeezing some of the principals involved in Speakergate to obtain from them information their lawyers have denied to Mr. Twardy.   Virtually all Mr. Donovan’s Republican campaign opponents have said Mr. Donovan either did or did not know that his finance director, Robert Braddock, was, to put it kindly, delinquent in avoiding the near occasion of arrest. If Mr. Donovan knew about the financing irregularities that led to Mr. Braddock’s arrest, he was participating in corrupt activity; and if he did not know, he is not competent, m...

"We can tax the millionaires in Washington and we can make Connecticut a better place for working families ” – 5th District Democratic U.S. House candidate Chris Donovan "Don't tax you, don't tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree"— Russell Long Even the most progressive politician of his day, Russell’s father Huey Long, knew the scheme wouldn’t work; but it was a winner as a populist campaign pitch. Within the Democratic Party of his day, Russell was acknowledged as an authority on tax law. As such, he became an ardent advocate of tax breaks for business. “I have become convinced,” said Russell, most certainly not a chip off his father’s progressive block, “you're going to have to have capital if you're going to have capitalism." One suspects that progressive leader of the state House of Representatives Chris Donovan knows this. However, the deathless scheme, endemic in the Democratic Party, to convince the tax paying public that someone may be f...