Where do they get the notion?
MIDDLETOWN —
Why was I singing this mundane, nearly unmemorable 1974 hit by (I find later, via YouTube) by a soul trio called The Hues Corporation? I didn’t really want a tsunami to sweep up the Connecticut River and pull five contenders for Connecticut governor down to Davey Jones’s Locker in one great, big wave, did I?
Well, in fact, I approve of anything to cull this herd.
But in the short term, I was deeply concerned that the 60 state tourism professionals could hear me singing as I stepped into the main cabin of Mystique, a former New York Harbor cruise ship, now the flagship of Lady Katharine Cruises, moored here for parties, weddings, tours up the river and Saturday night dances.
I had just bid good morning to a few gentlemen in white uniforms with epaulets, galumphed up the aluminum gang plank, blithely opened the door and obliviously swanned past the reception table, totally ignoring the people with the checklist and name tags, to find a spot to sit and observe my political quarry in their natural habitat: making future-imperfect promises.
At this event there were Tim Herbst, the former GOP first selectman of Trumbull; Oz Griebel, making an independent run; David Stemerman, the former hedge funder from Greenwich seeking to petition his way to the Republican primary; and Bob Stefanowski of Madison, trying to do the same. Ned Lamont, the endorsed Democrat, came in much later and nearly missed the event, but was allowed to make his vague pitch.
The occasion was a board meeting of the Connecticut Tourism Coalition. Tourism is the under-nourished, rheumy stepchild of Connecticut economics. Yeah, it’s a $15-billion a year industry that employs 121,000 people and generates $1.6 billion in tax revenue. Sure, it puts us on the map and yes, the summer travel season is breathing down our necks.
So in 2010, the state’s tourism-marketing budget was $15 million. It fell to $6 million, then $4 million, while dithering state lawmakers have mumbled and stumbled.
Outside Mystique’s port side, the flow of cars and trucks along Route 9, about 100 yards away, was pausing for the notorious traffic lights. Starboard, the light rain was adding a touch of gray to the 400-mile-long river where in 1614, Adriaen Block of the Netherlands sailed as far north as Enfield. Nine years later, the Dutch established their “Fort House of Hope” not far from where today, the General Assembly does their dithering.
On the campaign trail in this make-or-break year for Connecticut politicians, candidates for governor are doing public events nearly every day. And yet, I had not seen Bob Stefanowski in the field.
Still, this guy, who thinks he can buy his way into the Governor’s Mansion, who worked for GE, which is now a penny stock, said Gov. Dan Malloy has “the worst economic policy in the history of man.” He then said he’d eliminate the income tax in eight years.
I had been too busy working on the Friday night of the Republican State Convention to encounter him in the field. In fact, he was too busy throwing a bacchanal in a reception room to even attend the convention itself, having realized his business plan to reinvent himself as a candidate wasn’t going to yield him the 15 percent to automatically qualify for the Aug.14 primary.
Stefanowski, in case you haven’t seen one or 20 of his million-dollar TV advertising buy, is a former General Electric and UBS executive from Madison who’s another in the long line of candidates for governor who wants to start at the top; not with his local school board, planning and zoning commission or the Board of Selectmen. So he’s enlisted Mr. Trickle Down himself, Arthur Laffer, Ronald Reagan’s aptly named economic architect, whose theory that cutting taxes will result in growth has never panned out.
In fact, tax-slashing and trickle-down has been so thoroughly repudiated in Kansas and Oklahoma, that taxpayers and teachers there have revolted over sharp cuts to education, caused by the budget cuts necessitated by the aforementioned tax cutting, and the starvation of state spending that conservatives still hold close and dear, like life preservers in a tsunami.
Still, this guy, who thinks he can buy his way into the Governor’s Mansion, who worked for GE, which is now a penny stock, said Gov. Dan Malloy has “the worst economic policy in the history of man.” He then said he’d eliminate the income tax in eight years.
Makes me feel like I could have a future selling bridges over the Connecticut River. It’s only eight weeks to the primary and I’m still looking for someone who will rock the boat.