Blaming ‘homophobia’ helps Dannel Malloy keep his self-respect

W hen his irascibility has subsided occasionally over the last week Governor Malloy has acknowledged that opposition to his nomination of Andrew J. McDonald to be chief justice involved a little more than the nominee’s sexual orientation. The governor said some people thought the state Supreme Court had gotten too liberal and some legislators wanted to cross him.

But the governor keeps arguing that disdain for McDonald’s sexual orientation was the big motive. Asked if future judicial nominees will face the scrutiny McDonald got, the governor responded, “Only if they’re gay.”

Few people really believe that, and the claim is made only by those who gain politically from it. But the governor might very much want to believe it, since the failure of the McDonald nomination results as much from the failure of the governor generally as from problems with the nominee.

Polls suggest that Malloy is the most unpopular governor in the country, and his unpopularity has nothing to do with the McDonald nomination or the governor’s cynical yet silly suggestion that the nominee’s sexual orientation was a primary qualification for the highest judicial office.

A governor who retained a basic level of respect from his constituents also would have retained enough respect among legislators to push McDonald’s nomination through the General Assembly despite the nominee’s questionable record and the nomination’s unprecedented cronyism. Even legislators who abhorred that cronyism and McDonald’s politics would have feared crossing a governor who retained the public’s respect.

But this governor is practically being chased out of office, state government has become so insolvent that no one in authority dares to face the problem, and most candidates for nomination by the governor’s party for governor and the legislature this year are running away from him.

The other day even the governor’s own former aide, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, vying to succeed Malloy, said the governor’s 10-year extension of the master state employee union contract was a mistake. The leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, has said her best qualification may be her having no connection to Malloy.

Actually, apart from Bronin’s lamenting the new union contract, the Democratic candidates for governor seem to concur with most of what Malloy has done and are inclined to do more of it. For unpopular as he is, the governor has well reflected what their party stands for — more taxes and spending as long as no expensive policy ever achieves its nominal objective, as long as society grows less self-sufficient and more dependent on government, thus sustaining the government and dependent classes, the party’s base. But at least those Democrats suspect that the public senses that this approach isn’t working for anyone outside the government and dependent classes.

Leaving office in these circumstances, with Connecticut’s long decline picking up speed, his administration’s incompetence exploding all over the place — from the University of Connecticut to the unfinished but already antiquated central Connecticut commuter railroad project to primary education — any governor might want to blame “homophobia” and not himself for his inability, even with a majority in the legislature, to install his crony at the top of the court system. At least this time Malloy isn’t blaming President Trump and the NRA.