Hey governor, you should go for a big play
This week there appeared a very strange article, masterfully reported by the Connecticut Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas, about the relationship between Gov. Ned Lamont in the General Assembly.
Allow me to summarize. The legislators appear to regard Lamont as a group of students might regard a foreign exchange student from some obscure sun- or wind-blasted country where the stars are strange.
“At first he didn’t know what soup was, but we showed him, and now he is getting used to soup.”
“He brought a chicken to class every day, and he would let the chicken sit at his desk while he sat on the floor. And we had to tell him we don’t do that here.” It was almost that extreme. For Ned’s part, he said he “kind of liked” having the legislature leave the building and go home to Gales Ferry, Suckiaug, Mirkwood and Eeby Deeby while he and his staff managed the COVID-19 crisis.
He also said (and thank you, Paz, for approximating Ned’s halting Hugh Grant delivery): “… fundamentally, I just, — you know, the Capitol is just all politics and short-term political calculations.”
This is like saying a dog track is just a place where greyhounds run really fast in a circle, in the sense that it’s true but not supposed to be a big surprise.
But the paragraph that made me pause for a very long time was this one: “We’re going to think about this mileage thing for trucks,” Lamont said. “And I’m going to put some critical things on the table for the legislature. And probably they’ll say, ‘Nah, not right now.’ But my job is to try and let the political chips fall where they may.”
Ned apparently feels like a haberdasher and regards the legislators as customers who come in his shop and try on a bunch of stuff but never buy it.
“I showed them this kicky tie that really picks up the blue and yellow stripe in the shirt, but what am I going to do, force them?”
Well, yes. Sometimes you have to force them. Part of the problem is that there is essentially no such thing as Lamontism. There is no set of ideas with which he is firmly identified. Asking about Lamontism is like asking about David Copperfield’s “plan,” which is to make it to the end of the novel in one piece.
In this, he is not unique. I feel comfortable saying there was no such thing as Rellism.
I also feel comfortable saying there was such a thing as Malloyism. Malloyism included the concept of “shared sacrifice.” As in, “if you don’t share my ideas about how to fix this state, I will sacrifice you in yonder buzzard-circled hell-mouth.”
It would be in bad taste to link the arrival of a deadly pandemic with the idea of “being lucky,” but let us do so anyway. Ned has been somewhat lucky to be in charge during the outbreak of COVID-19.
There are several components to this luck. One: as far as I can tell, about one-third of America’s governors are as dumb as pea turkeys. When you need an aide to make sure you don’t continue staring at the sky during a rainstorm and accidentally drown, you are going to make the governors with detectable brain activity look real good. Two: even as COVID-19 looms as one of the greatest challenges humankind has faced, it’s quite a bit easier to manage than Connecticut’s landscape of unfunded liabilities, crumbling cities, crumbling infrastructure, crumbling outfrastructure, crumbling schools and crumbling cookies.
COVID is a complex biomedical problem with “Sesame Street” solutions. Wash your hands, stop touching your nose, give people a little space, go to the doctor and get your shots.
And, to quote Ned Lamont, remember that “bad days happen to everyone, but when one happens to you, just keep doing your best and never let a bad day make you feel bad about yourself.”
Actually, that is something Big Bird said. But it sounds a little like Ned.
The point is, if Lamont served only one term, he would be remembered mostly (but not universally) as the governor who got us through a terrible pandemic with minimal harm. Maybe. We’re far from out of the woods here.
But if he runs again, which he seems inexplicably determined to do, it will be fair to ask what else he has accomplished. Close to nothing. There was that guy who almost bought the blue tweed jacket with the mushroom piping. But that sale, like regionalism and tolls, fell through.
If Ned were to re-read that Pazniokas story, it might strike him that the best time to do something big and important is soon. Remember what Big Bird said: “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
No, that was Winston Churchill. Or Rahm Emanuel. Or Miss Piggy.
Now is the time to launch a major fiscal reform. You have already set the precedent of saying, “You’re going to feel a little pinch here,” and you’ve got people lining up and demanding to know when they can feel a second pinch.
It’s the perfect moment to set up a third pinch. Also, Ned himself has identified the other critical advantage. The legislators are not around. No Bridgeport guys with horrible B.O. No rubes from Voluntown and Sterling organizing jug bands on the staircase landings. A fella can think clearly for once.
Do it, Ned. But you will eventually have to get these stinky legislators to vote for a bunch of bills, so you might ask Malloy where that hell-mouth is.