The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Ghosts of conventions past
I miss the booze.
It’s not like I ever drank more than a beer or two, or three after a long day under the bombardment of boilerplate political speeches. But it’s just the principle of these things that are still called political conventions. They’ve become so ... conventional.
In the weird-old days, a dozen years ago and more, it was the Connecticut Republicans who always had so much more fun than their political counterparts. To anthropomorphize — I suspect elephants are much more social animals than donkeys.
The landscapes of those late-night GOP gatherings were memorable for the muffled rattle of ice in glasses containing brown or clear fluids, and cigarette smoke in a soft, swirly haze over the blazers and cocktail dresses.
There was the laughter of people who knew what it was like to actually work for a living, providing value to a then-robust manufacturing economy. It was so far away from today’s deferred-tax hedge funders rendering companies like auto junkyards, transforming profit-shuffling gazillionaires into neophyte, wanna-be politicians.
That was back in the mists of time, when elected officials of either stripe still listened to each other and enjoyed relationships with people from the other side of the aisle they could actually call “colleagues” without the drip of sarcasm in today’s General Assembly debates.
Maybe the smoking and drinking, if not the fulminating partisanship, finally caught up with that generation, but everything is so damn serious now. We’re hanging by a thread.
When it came to partying, state Democrats, the dope-smoking supporters of left-wing anarchy and the red-rimmed redistribution of the wealth, were downright stodgy. Sure, they’d get together for a drink after their perfunctory nominating sessions, but they were more straitlaced. Maybe the selfdestructive Dems worried about offending the wideranging factions within.
Maybe the seeds of diversified dissent had already been planted in the collective consciences of Democrats who, put in a room together, might not agree on anything, let alone the stiffness of their cocktails. We are so far away from the point where Bill O’Neill, the East Hampton saloonkeeper, became the longest-serving governor in state history, finally eclipsed by Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in 1991.
Now, both sides are boring, predictable dogmatics. Maybe it’s the real worry of potential drunken-driving charges.
Connecticut’s 20-year Democratic majorities, thanks to the public-financing program of which Republicans are so lockstep critical, disappeared two years ago with the 18-18 tie in the Senate.
Pending a special election in Democrat-heavy Hartford, the House Democrats have a 79-71 edge, which is not the kind of working majority they can use to pass anything even mildly controversial. So, fare thee well to highway tolls, for now. Recreational weed? Do you think the Ds are going to give the Rs that kind of ammunition in an election year?
Coincidentally, Democrats and Republicans have a lot more in common that the rest of us, the unaffiliated majority. I mean, Barack Obama was an OK Republican president, you know what I mean?
I don’t expect too much from the Democratic convention in two weeks. It will be in the Connecticut Convention Center, a problematic place in downtown Hartford that’s a legacy of John “Why Should I Resign If I’ve Done Nothing Wrong” Rowland, who had the site pegged for a new NFL stadium when the Patriots’ Bob Kraft played Connecticut like an unstrung harp. The WiFi is notoriously bad, the parking lot is an indecipherable, multistory nightmare. Then the Ds will have to sort out Ned Lamont, Susan Bysiewicz, Joe Ganim and a nice guy named Sean Connolly.
The GOP state convention will be held next weekend at the Mashantucket Pequot’s Foxwoods Casino.
It’s a beauty contest masquerading as a preliminary weeding-out of a few wannabes from the August primaries. You could literally make a football team out of the 11 hopefuls for the gubernatorial nomination.
Without getting more specific, or letting your imagination run wild, picture Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton as the running back, Tim Herbst, former Trumbull first selectman, as the quarterback, Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti the tight end, Dave Walker, the former US comptroller general as center, and Fairfield fabulist Peter Lumaj the right guard, of course.
Foxwoods has some potential. Everyone will have hotel rooms for Friday night. There is gambling in smoky, airplane-hanger-sized rooms. There will be drinks. There will be 1,200 delegates nearly half of whom attending their first conventions.
This has potential for a debauch. Ken Dixon, political editor and columnist, can be reached at 860-549-4670 or at kdixon@ctpost.com. Visit him at twitter.com/KenDixonCT and on Facebook at kendixonct.hearst.