Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

A sharp political analyst, Karl Marx -- who, appropriately enough, wrote for the New York Tribune -- used to talk about “the correlation of forces.” Marx was a lousy economist but a keen observer of people, countries, events and political movements. By the correlation of forces, Marx meant all the important powers that shape politics, the plow that forms the furrow in which politics flows and determines its course. The correlation of forces drifted to the top of my mind about two weeks ago when Gov. Jodi Rell surprised all of us by pulling a pin from her grenade and fragging the Democrat controlled legislature. The ensuing fireworks have been instructive. All the usual suspects retreated behind all the usual barricades. Roy Occhiogrosso, who has become the unofficial voice of the Democrat Party in the media, characterized Rell’s budget, on the Shelly Sindland show, as “a fairy tale.” Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy was sitting beside him, and for once his wits failed him. He migh...

In the New Year now upon us, one hopes that Americans – and nutmeggers especially – will be guardedly optimistic. Ebullience has not served us well in the passing old year. In his column, “ A Year Like No Other ,” Victor David Hanson, author of the best account of the Peloponnesian War, “A War Like No Other,” notes: “What happened in mid-September not only destroyed the classical concept of trust and fair-dealing, but the entire Wall Street premise that those with MBAs from Ivy League business schools, or years of work with the SEC, or long tenure with brokerage houses with 19th-century pedigrees know anything. In other words, goodbye to all those titles and business cards. We are now back to hometown insurance agents and the local tow-truck driver offering just as insightful stock tips.” Shelly Sindland of Fox News has put together a triptych of what ails us here in the land of Bill Buckley, who left us in the old year quite alone. How he would have loved making sense out of our pre...

Shelly Sindland, the affable host of “ The Real Story ,” a Fox news production, had on her program three guests: Chris Healy, the chairman of the state Republican Party, Roy Occhiogrosso, a principal with Global Strategy Group, and Kevin Rennie, once a Republican state Rep. and now a commentator for the Hartford Courant. Mrs. Sindland asked of her guests a question that reporters should not fail to ask of legislators as the state attempts to discharge a $6 billion biennial budget deficit: How do we cut spending? At first there was some palaver about tolls, selling Bradley Field and selling off portions of state highways to private firms for maintenance, while politely asking the UConn Health Center to return some of the money lavished upon it by past legislatures. Then Mrs. Sindland offered an idea of how to pump money back into the economy: “I have a great idea. A congressman from Texas on the federal level is proposing to suspend the income tax and the social security tax for two mon...