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As Republicans brace for a November 3rd deluge of disappointments, some are beginning to contemplate how to emerge from the wreckage. The maneuvering for advantage in what’s left of the party after Donald Trump’s unpopularity in Connecticut punishes candidates in down-ballot races.

Candidates eyeing the party’s 2022 nomination for governor may begin to reveal stalking horses in the early competition for advantage. Party leadership contests provide a narrow arena to test their support and fighting skills.

A contest may come in an early race for party chairman. Incumbent J.R. Romano could have trouble holding on until his term reaches its natural conclusion in June. Republicans will be looking for immediate change after November 3rd in the only political entity they control: their shambolic party organization. June will not be soon enough for those who want to try to begin the post-Trump era and begin a soft launch of the race for governor.

Richard Tutunjian is a member of the Republican State Central Committee from the 8th District.

UPDATE. State Senator Kevin Witkos, who represents the 8th Senate District, provided this statement in response to the above-post:

“The Facebook posts shared by an 8th district state central committee member have no place in our public discourse and I condemn them wholeheartedly. I abhor the fact that instead of focusing on policy disagreements and arguing the best way to improve our communities, state, and national, political discourse has descended this low. Whether these posts are created or shared by a state central member, or even our president, they bring us all down and do not reflect the values that so many of us hold dear. I have called upon Rich Tutunjian to step down in his role as a state central member for the 8th district”

The Courant has the unsavory details of Republican State Central Committee member Michelle Garabedian’s arrest by Manchester police arising out of allegedly engaging in sex in a daycare parking lot.

Garabedian represents the 29th Senate District on the Republican governing committee. The Windham Republican is secretary of her local town committee and also a justice of the peace.

Her Facebook page features the command to “Control Your Kids Not Our Guns.” Garabedian might want to start by controlling herself first.

Garabedian was in Facebook twist earlier this year over Democratic state Senator Mae Flexer’s nonsensical proposal to limit bear hunting to bears that are smarter than the average bear.

Danbury mayor Mark Boughton has spent months trying to manipulate state Republican affairs since November’s host of party defeats. The two-time gubernatorial hopeful could not, however, get his horse across the finish line first in this evening’s contest to fill a vacancy in the vice chairmanship of the state party committee.

Boughton took the floor at the Hartford meeting to nominate Old Lyme’s Margaret Jane Derisio to fill the vacancy. She lost 37-32.5 in the second round of voting to tea party-leaning Annalisa Stravato of Wilton.

State central committee members will elect their leaders to full terms in June.

Democratic state legislators are urging President Biden and the Connecticut congressional delegation to secure the release of Hamas terrorists held in Israel. In a letter circulated last week to be sent April 1st, the legislators, 9 House member and 3 members of the Senate, ask Biden and the state’s two senators and five representatives “to prioritize the safety and well-being of all hostages and detainees in both Gaza and Israel, recognizing their right to freedom and unconditional release.” Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is estimated to have captured hundreds of Hamas fighters.

The legislators do not call for the release of hostages held by Hamas as a condition of a ceasefire.

In a chilling display of moral equivalency, the signers equate hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th with the terrorists and their abettors captured by Israeli troops. There are no detainees in Gaza. There are only hostages, six of them are thought to be Americans. There are no hostages in Israel. There are detainees, the Hamas fighters and their accomplices held in Israel, no longer free to slaughter Jews. Releasing them would be a prelude to more violence.

More than 240 hostages were kidnapped and taken to Gaza in the October 7th attack on Israel that saw Hamas revel in its slaughter of 1,200 people. Hamas and other terrorist organizations are estimated to be holding 130 terrorists, though as many as 50 may be dead, according to Israeli estimates, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Curiously, Hamas is not named in the four-paragraph letter. It does, however, minimize the October 7th massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel as merely connecting “to a history of conflict….” Because, that phrase suggests, October 7th was one more day in a continuum of strife. In January, Hamas described the attack as a “necessary step” against Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to destroy Hamas, a necessary step to peace and security in the region.

On March 25th, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire. The resolution does not make the release of the hostages held by Hamas a condition of a ceasefire, nor does it condemn Hamas. The United State, in an ill-judged decision, abstained on the resolution.

The dozen signatories loftily declare themselves as joining “with voices of conscience in Connecticut and around the world in recognizing the imperative need for an immediate, mutual, and permanent ceasefire in the assault on Gaza.” Their solution is the restoration of Hamas, allowing it to continue to fight to annihilate Israel and Jews, while consigning Palestinians to the continued brutal rule of terrorists. Imagine the sort of conscience that mistakes bolstering a murderous regime for virtue.

The legislators, exercising their copyright on conscience, limit their ceasefire call to “the assault in Gaza.” Their letter does not condemn the more than 12,000 rockets Hamas has fired on Israel since October 7th or the tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from their homes near the democratic nation’s northern border because of rockets fired by Hezbollah, another Iran-backed terror organization.

The way forward is not hard to identify. “The central cause of Gaza’s misery is Hamas. It alone bears the blame for the suffering it has inflicted on Israel and knowingly invited against Palestinians,” wrote Bret Stephens in The New York Times on October 15th. “The best way to end the misery is to remove the cause, not stay the hand of the remover.”

David Brooks confirmed that reality five months later in a widely read March 24th extended column, also in The New York Times. There will be more misery on both sides as long as Hamas, with hundreds of miles of tunnels from which to emerge to fight and then retreat to, continues to place Palestinian civilians between itself and the IDF.

“Israel and the Palestinians have both just suffered shattering defeats. Maybe in the next few years they will do some difficult rethinking, and a new vision of the future will come into view,” Brooks concludes. “But that can happen only after Hamas is fully defeated as a military and governing force.”

The unconditional release of Hamas fighters from captivity in Israel would, as the Connecticut Democratic legislators might euphemistically describe it, extend and continue to connect the barbarous to “a history of conflict.”

Published March 30, 2024.

Wilton’s Analisa Stravato wants one of Connecticut’s two seats on the Republican National Committee—the one occupied by Leora Levy.

Because Republicans hold no statewide or congressional offices, minor posts take on significance among frustrated activists in a party in decline. The party’s state central committee members elect the two Connecticut members of national committee. Grumbling grows that a firm date has not been announced for the vote. Republicans are particularly sensitive to some deviations in voting procedures. The “r” word has been whispered.

Levy, who won the 2022 U.S. Senate primary over party-endorsed candidate Themis Klarides by a wide margin, is seeking re-election. Levy won the endorsement of Donald Trump shortly before the primary. Incumbent Richard Blumenthal defeated Levy by 15%—nearly 200,000 votes—in the general election.

Trump nominated Levy in 2019 to serve as ambassador to Chile. Levy’s confirmation hearing was not a success. The Senate did not act on her nomination.

Levy, Stravato and incumbent John Frey faced off on a remote forum last week. Levy’s formidable fundraising record reminded voters what they will lose if they elect Stravato, who served as the party’s vice chair from 2015-2017. She is currently the Republican registrar of voters in Wilton.

Under the anachronistic rules, a state must elect one man and one woman. Frey is unopposed. He is not considered one of the state party’s top fundraisers.

Some people are saying party chairman Ben Proto favors Stravato. This is raising the temperature in the tiny hothouse of state party politics.

Published March 3, 2024.

Sports broadcaster Sage Steele left ESPN in August, announcing, “I have decided to leave so I can exercise my first amendment rights more freely.” Republican leaders and donors in Washington and Connecticut hope the popular personality will fulfill that ambition by running for the House in the state’s competitive 5th CD, Daily Ructions has learned.

Steele would face three-term Democratic incumbent Jahana Hayes in the general election. Hayes eked across the finish line first last year in one of the nation’s closest House races, defeating former state Senate George Logan by 1,800 votes. Logan is reported to be contemplating a rematch with Hayes. A Steele candidacy would upend those plans.

Steele left Bristol-based ESPN two years after criticizing the corporation’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. Steele complied with the requirement and called it sick on the “Uncut with Jay Cutler” podcast. Steele talked about her dispute with with ESPN on Fox News in August.

Steele was a guest last month at the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee.

The broadcaster joined ESPN in 2006. She has spoken often of her conservative political views. A Steele-Hayes contest would draw national attention from activists, media and the donor class that drives many party decisions.

Steele has many choices. Having left ESPN but not begun a new career, the Avon resident would likely be able to devote herself to the congressional race full-time. That would give her a significant advantage over Logan.

Delegates from both parties in the district that runs from the northwest corner of the state to Meriden in central Connecticut will meet in May to endorse a candidate. The district includes all or part of 41 towns. The Cook Partisan Voting Index gives it a D +3 rating.

Published September 18, 2023.

For something different, enjoy my new Substack newsletter, Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is Representative Jim Himes. And subscribe here:

The Boston Globe reports that LEGO’s new American headquarters will be 100,000 square feet in a new Boyleston Street building atop the Massachusetts Turnpike. LEGO announced early this year that it will close its Enfield headquarters after nearly 50 years in the north central Connecticut town.

“Being in proximity [to MIT and other innovative institutions] can make a big difference in collaboration,” LEGO American group president Skip Kodak told The Globe. “You don’t know who you might bump into when you move into a new neighborhood.”

Governor Maura Healey called the announcement, according to The Globe, “an incredible opportunity to bring new jobs and innovation to the area, while inspiring the next generation of leaders.”

LEGO’s decision remains a stinging wound in Connecticut’s 15 year struggle to restore jobs to the state’s economy.

Published August 21, 2023.

The Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system is shedding frontline employees while seeking to fill a new high level position of Vice Chancellor of External Affairs. Unions are objecting to what appears to be a serious misallocation of resources.

The job posting appeared online last week. The winner of search will report “directly to the CSCU Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor is responsible for providing strategic direction and oversight to the Government Relations and External Affairs team as well as the Communications team in the CSCU System Office.”

The deadline to submit an application is August 2nd. The job posting indicates the winning applicant will start working in September. This is a short time to accept applications, review them, interview promising candidates and make a decision. The compressed schedule suggests to the skeptical that a candidate has been chosen and the hiring process is being observed because it must be.

CSCU has a grim history of conducting faux searches for high level positions–or no search at all–to benefit well-connected insiders in need of a job, sometimes one that boosts pension prospects.

Six union leaders objected to filling the new position in a message Thursday to Chancellor Terrence Cheng. “Faculty and Staff have long decried the expansion of the CSCU System Office, particularly at the expense of resources for our constituent universities and colleges during a decade of chronic underfunding,” they wrote in an email distributed by Seth Freedman, a professor of computer information systems at Capital Community College .

“In our community colleges campus managers have already begun cutting [part-time] and [full-time] staff who work in our Advising offices, Libraries, Tutoring Centers, English as a Second Language departments, and Workforce Development offices,” Freedman continued. He concluded by asking Cheng not to fill the new position while cutting student-facing services on our college and university campuses….”

CCSU’s central office saw finance director and former state budge chief Benjamin Barnes depart last week. General Counsel Ernestine Weaver was announced as Senior Fellow Advisor the next day.

The adumbrated search for a Vice Chancellor will add to growing concern among state leaders that Cheng is about to make some serious missteps at a time when regents and others require confidence in the system’s leader as the iron laws of demographics bear down on Connecticut’s colleges and universities.

Published July 20, 2023.

Angelo Mozilo’s Countrywide Financial was a central actor in the 2007 mortgage meltdown and the wider 2008 crisis that it caused. There was another side to the mortgage maestro. In the competitive and often furtive world of subprime mortgages, Mozilo created an accommodating niche for the powerful and privileged: Friends of Angelo.

Mozilo’s foundation announced that he has died at age 84.

Former Senator Christopher Dodd was a prominent member of the Friends of Angelo club, as first reported in a blockbuster Conde Nast Portfolio June 2008 expose. Dodd maintained he knew nothing about sweetheart deals from the doomed mortgage maestro. Former Countrywide loan officer Robert Feinberg told a different story to Portfolio’s Dan Golden.

The Friends of Angelo story and much that followed from it caused Dodd to draw a bitter end his 2010 campaign for a sixth term. The mortgage meltdown and the bundling of subprime mortgages was a complicated, technical story. That a central actor in the global calamity had curried the goodwill of the powerful with special attention and better terms than others similarly situated could get when they borrowed money was easy to understand.

What’s the good of all that influent and power if you can’t get a mortgage with the fees reduced or the interest shaved? Angelo understood.

Published July 17, 2023.