Connecticut, lead it or leave it

I’m going to miss David Walker. Maybe not as much as the city of Bridgeport will regret that $35,000 a year he and his wife Mary are taking off the table. But I’m right up there.

At one point, a little more than a year ago, I thought he was the best-qualified Republican to take over this mess called Connecticut government.

A former U.S. Comptroller General, now decamping the Black Rock neighborhood after nine years, Walker is as wonky on policy as former Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy. Walker knows finance. He had a plan for the state. He first earned some political credibility in 2014, when he campaigned as former state Sen. John McKinney’s lieutenant governor running mate.

But state Republicans, as usual, took the inexperienced millionaire into the flames of defeat. Of course, elections aren’t really a gauge of who’s better qualified for the job. They’re strict popularity contests at the least, and pure demographic gauges.

In 2014, it was Tom Foley of Greenwich, who ultimately lost, for a second time, to Malloy. Last fall, it was Bob Stefanowski of Madison, less of a rich guy but much more of a neophyte, in his first political race. Stefanowski, you’ll recall, beat Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and three others in the five-way primary. Walker never got enough delegate support at the convention to join the primary battle.

That was three times in a row, over 12 years, that Republican rank-and-file just plain selected a losing candidate.

Not that it mattered, in the record turnout sparked by the anti-Trump backlash that led to the return of the state Senate to Democratic control and the solidification of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Oh, and anyone who thinks GOP State Chairman J.R. Romano was responsible for the latest loss, I suggest you and your like-minded gaze at the true cause: into the mirror.

Which brings us to our political moment.

Yep, Walker’s leaving. So is Malloy, kind of, although he and Cathy Malloy are keeping their place in Essex, while the former governor is taking over the University of Maine system as chancellor.

There’s a certain frothing strata of negativity in Connecticut, singing a one-note tune about how people are lining up to leave the state because the cost of living is so high; because Democrats are so horrible; because the business climate reeks; taxes, traffic, tornadoes, bears, Lyme disease ...

Heaven forbid that a few hedge fund billionaires care so much about their eyepopping wealth that they leave the state for ... Really. I suppose it makes sense to seek out a warm place where sea level is on the rise, the traffic is just as bad, and there are alligators getting chased down the road by Burmese pythons.

The Walkers are heading south, into some semiretirement near Annapolis, where David will start a distinguished visiting professor gig at the Naval Academy.

I’m not one of those loveConnecticut-or-leave-it types. Life is too short to live in a place that you don’t like.

The General Assembly is a slow-footed mess, with ’fraidy cat lawmakers who bite off more than they can chew every year. They can’t really accomplish much, and then blame the speed of

Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

Dave Walker answers a question in New Canaan on April 18, 2018.

Florida? Really. I suppose it makes sense to seek out a warm place where sea level is on the rise, the traffic is just as bad, and there are alligators getting chased down the road by Burmese pythons.

the calendar, not their inabilities, when adjournment comes with little to show for it.

After all, this was the state that took five years to finally ban the use of handheld phone by drivers. At least Dick Roy, the late Milford state representative who pushed the issue, lived long enough to see it before dying recently, way too soon, at 76.

You want a more-nimble General Assembly? Elect a better class of lawmaker. Better yet, run for office yourself, then try to live in the state on your $32,000 salary, plus mileage. That’s only slightly less than what the Walkers are paying in property taxes for the pleasure of living on Long Island Sound in what is arguably a dysfunctional city, where local officials still think a gambling destination is the answer.

“However, like an increasing number of people, the time has come to cut our losses and move closer to family,” Walker, a native Alabaman, recently wrote, detailing his gripes with the city and the state.

I’m not sure I buy that entire sentence, and would like a breakdown of the percentage of people leaving because they want to be closer to kin.

My attitude is, if you’ve leaving Connecticut, it’s not really home.