By Chris Powell
Debating this week for the second and final time of the campaign for governor, Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski put on an instructive show. Even the third-party candidate, Rob Hotaling, added something important, if not what he intended.
Aggressive and full of details, Stefanowski prompted Governor Lamont to perform better than usual. But the most telling blow against the governor may have been self-inflicted, for he twice ran away from a question about the huge cost overruns on state government’s New London State Pier project.
The governor also may not have helped himself when asked to identify the best Connecticut governor of his lifetime. Lamont picked Lowell P. Weicker Jr. The candidates were not allowed to explain their choices, but Weicker is famous for instituting the state income tax after pledging during his campaign to oppose such a tax, and the income tax secured what is likely the permanent victory of Connecticut’s government and welfare classes over everyone else.
Hotaling also chose Weicker.
Stefanowski chose Ella Grasso, a Democrat who, while a longtime liberal, was famous for resisting the income tax desired by many in her party decades ago. Stefanowski cited his endorsement in this campaign by Grasso’s son, James, who contends that his mother would find today’s Democratic Party too extreme.
Hotaling’s answer to this and other questions showed that his views are far closer to Lamont’s than Stefanowski’s.
As the nominee of the Independent Party, whose ballot line four years ago provided 25,000 votes to Stefanowski, Hotaling had been expected by many, including Stefanowski himself, to draw votes mainly away from the Republican this time. These votes would come from people who are dissatisfied with the Lamont administration but consider the Republican Party tainted. Hotaling’s performance at the debate demolished this assumption.
While just weeks ago Stefanowski sued Hotaling over irregularities at the Independent Party’s caucus, whose nomination Stefanowski wanted again, he now was glad to argue that the party’s nominee is just another Democrat.
Also revealing was the heated exchange between the governor and Stefanowski about state government’s huge “rainy day fund” surplus, estimated at $6 billion, arising largely from emergency federal grants. Stefanowski wants to use as much as half of the surplus for tax relief to help offset high inflation. The governor wants to keep the money available to state government for use when tax revenue falls in the recession that is widely expected and may already have begun.
That is, Stefanowski would return money to the public generally, while the governor would keep it for those on the government payroll so that, when recession comes, they can be exempted from sacrifice and government can be exempted from economizing generally. The many six-figure salaries in state and municipal government will be safe. Ordinary taxpayers won’t be.
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Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, is terrified by the growing prospect of Republican control of Congress after next week’s election, calling it “apocalyptic” and “potentially cataclysmic” and likely to result in a default on the national debt, a shutdown of the federal government, and constant impeachments.
Yes, the congressional Republican Party has many crazies and clowns. But then is Murphy unable to see why there seems to be a Republican trend in the country even if not in Connecticut?
For the Democratic congressional party can match the Republicans crazy and clown for crazy and clown, and can top them with a president whose dementia makes a scene nearly every day on top of high inflation, open borders, and failing schools brimming with political indoctrination, transgenderism, and contempt for parents.
Since the Democrats hold the presidency and Congress, are voters not entitled to blame them for these circumstances? For if, as Murphy says, the political alternative to the Democrats is “apocalyptic” and “potentially cataclysmic,” to many people the political present must already seem that way.
Are there any Democratic officeholders without responsibility for inflation, open borders, and declining education? Murphy doesn’t notice that he is part of the present apocalypse himself.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years.
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Chris Powell column 