Hayes makes history on power rankings
People are tired of living in a pandemic, but a pandemic is not like Rocky Hill. You can’t just move out.
I have not done a Political Power Rankings column in months. Or since last week. Time currently is a blur. Or a blurred way of measuring reality, which is also a blur. Maybe I need new glasses.
A reminder about methodology. The PPRs are arrived using advanced data science, in which weighted state and national polling averages are divided by the last thing anybody said to me.
The rankings are final and can not be appealed. If you have complaints, please direct them to Dan Haar (dhaar@hearstmediact.org). Dan said you looked really stupid in that shirt you wore the other day, so you might want to take that up with him while you’re at it.
Jahana Hayes, 125.8. The congresswoman from the 5th District has recorded the highest ranking in PPR history. She has a pretty bad case of COVID-19 and has taken the unusual step of writing a journal of her symptoms and the “cruel roller-coaster” of the disease’s upand-down progression. Photos of the handwritten pages are tweeted every day. This is an unusual act of transparency and a much-needed reminder that this disease does not have to kill you to mess you up real bad. Get well, madam.
Arthur O’Neill, 99.8. I once described the Republican state representative from Southbury as looking like the town apothecary in a Wild West gunslinger movie. He is mild-mannered in appearance, but he has repeatedly proven himself to be made of tougher stuff, starting with his days as co-chairman of the House Select Committee to investigate the misdeeds of Gov. John G. Rowland.
O’Neill is, as far as I know, the only Republican to denounce state Sen. Eric Berthel for having a QAnon decal on his car. Berthel said he does not support QAnon’s “wild-eyed” conspiracy theories, having to do with Satanist pedophile rings reaching to the highest echelons of American power, but he does like some other things about QAnon, despite the fact that there aren’t any. This is a little bit like saying you watch Porn Hub for the camerawork.
O’Neill is retiring this term. He will be missed.
Vincent Candelora, 99.0. Candelora is a Republican legislator representing Crickhollow, Frogmorton and various towns ending in the syllable “ford.” He’s a good bet to take over as House Minority Leader from Themis Klarides who got married last weekend and is also retiring, either to concentrate on making soups and stews and cookies while catching up on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or to buy a lot of expensive shoes and run a ferocious campaign for governor. I
believe she is weighing both options.
Anyway, Candelora this week criticized President Donald Trump for refusing to commit to a peaceful, orderly transfer of power, post-election. (Trump said everything will go well if we “get rid of the ballots,” which seemed just a tiny bit ominous.) I’ve been asking these Republicans to get up on their hind legs about this kind of thing, and finally one of them has. Bravo.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, 90.5. It’s easy to take Blumenthal for granted because he has been here since the Triassic Period, during which time he filed one of Earth’s first
lawsuits following the collision of two supercontinents.
But I spoke to him earlier this week, and he was genuinely — and a little disconcertingly — emotional about the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and genuinely vehement about taking the case against late-term confirmation hearings to the American people. So either he’s reignited his crusading inner fires or he’s having a nervous breakdown. Either way, he’s super-relevant.
Ned Lamont, 78.9. It’s possible I’m not being fair to the governor, but then no one else is either. Ned seems a little wobbly-legged after being batted around
for months like a spit-covered cat toy. On Thursday he announced his Phase 3 reopening for everything except bars, nightclubs, indoor cockfights and Satanist pizza sex rings. He has also, as I pointed out last week, become a hawk on school reopening and seems to want to do Halloween.
I would describe the spirit of the latest moves as “We have to try this in order to protect people’s livelihoods. If the infection rate soars, it will have been a mistake, but we have to find out.” This is a perfectly defensible position, which is a good thing because he may wind up having to defend it if we start having Missouri-sized case rates.
People are tired of living in a pandemic, but a pandemic is not like Rocky Hill. You can’t just move out. J.R. Romano,
00.00004. I have to give one low rating just to prove I’m serious about things. I want to thank the Republican state chairman for providing me with that chance.