COLIN MCENROE
Introducing the Conn. Political Power Rankings
Today, I introduce a new, occasional feature: The Connecticut Political Power Rankings. The CPPR’s are arrived at through a scientific review of relevant polling blended with empirically useful data, mediumroasted coffee beans and a pinch of cinnamon.
I make them up. That’s how they’re arrived at.
1. Chris Murphy. 93.1 .I considered leaving Murphy out of the rankings because whatever the next stage of his career turns out to be, it won’t involve Connecticut at all. But right now he casts a huge shadow here, especially with his singing role in the hit opera “L’impeachment del Grande Uomo Arancione.” (Trans.: “The Impeachment of the Large Orange Man.”) He’s a big deal on cable news, but he still does that thing where he walks across the state, ringing your doorbell and asking if he can use the bathroom.
2. William Tong. 89.8. I am never in any doubt about how the new attorney general is spending his time , because he and his staff are in danger of breaking the record set by Richard Blumenthal for most press releases in a single year. I don’t know what that record is. All I know is that in the time it takes me to write this paragraph, I will get another one. Most of them take the form of “TONG ANNOUNCES COURT VICTORY TO COMPEL [ENTITY YOU NEVER HEARD OF] TO STOP [ISSUE YOU WERE UNAWARE OF].” Yes, this can be annoying, overweening. But Connecticut likes hardworking AGs who are protecting the little guys from the big guys. Especially the big orange guy.
3. Themis Klarides, 79.2. This is quite a falloff from Tong, which is dangerous, because Klarides knows where I live. Klarides is indisputably the most visible and vibrant Republican politician in Connecticut, which is like being the greatest basketball player in Indonesia, in the sense that it might not matter. She’s also very good at riding her horse in a circle around the Democrats, huddling and shivering by their Conestoga wagons, while she fires her (fully licensed) sixshooters in the air. Her weakness is that she’s not prominently associated with a set of positive, constructive, coherent policies. She has also not separated her party from the big orange man, and 2020 could turn out to be one of those years when a ham sandwich can beat a Republican in a lot of districts. But only if the ham sandwich has Grey Poupon.
BULLETIN: MAYBE YOU THOUGHT I WAS JOKING BUT I JUST NOW RECEIVED A NEW TONG PRESS RELEASE. SERIOUSLY! WE RETURN YOU TO THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED COLUMN.
4. The Prophet Elijah. Not literally. But I’m saving this seat for somebody who has not arrived yet, for the Republican leader who can shift the party off its current moorings, renounce the worst atrocities of He Who Resembles a Clementine, and articulate a vision that melds fiscal conservatism with detailrich ideas for improving life in this state. Which is like saying I’m waiting for a unicorn who plays the bassoon and is an Olympic high diver. I don’t care. I can dream.
5. Ned Lamont. 61.1. Let us stipulate that his first six months boiled down to “Ned and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Stinky, Poopy Legislative Session.” He didn’t know what he was doing and, worse, he didn’t know that he didn’t know. But he might turn out to be an extremely rich and white version of Rafael Devers, the Red Sox third basemen who was called up too early in 2018 and was easy to strike out and occasionally looked like a person whose infield play relied entirely on knowledge acquired from watching “Bad News Bears.” This year, Devers lit up the league.
Maybe Ned won’t be that good in his second season, but he recently has shown nostrilsfoggingthemirror signs of leadership. And he’s unusually good at collaborating with other Northeastern governors. And we jackals of the press may be guilty of focusing too much on the governorlegislature dynamic and ignoring other aspects of the job. It’s like judging Voltaire only by how well he got along with the lunatic asylum down the road.
6. Susan Bysiewicz. 59.2. Even though these rankings are the meaningless musings of a pointyheaded journalism geek, it is impossible not to picture her flinging her laptop against the wall and yelling, “Sixth? That %&@#$ ranked me sixth?” It does seem as though Lamont is honoring some previous commitment to give his lieutenant governor opportunities to shine and, verily, to seize the mic at moments when another governor would still be talking.
7. Luke Bronin. 58.0. Look, the cool mayor is probably going to be Justin Elicker. Cool in the sense of having pulled off a surprising upset. Cool in a “mayor in a Wes Anderson movie” sense. OK, not cool. Forget I used that word. Anyway, Elicker can’t go anywhere for a while, and he’s yoked to that fasttwitch, banana republic, twoyear New Haven election cycle. Bronin, meanwhile, has survived some early lapses in judgment. His policy chops are strong. And a guy named Pete has made it suddenly fashionable to be a nottall, overeducated polymath centrist American mayor. Bronin and Buttigieg, in addition to sounding like a line of expensive jams and jellies, are basically the guys your mom used to wish you’d hang around with more. Instead of ...
8. Bob Stefanowski, 38.7, the guy you did hang around with while often wondering what, exactly, you were getting out of the experience. I just don’t understand this thing where you lose an election and spend the ensuing year licking your wounds in public. Stefanowski has a regular weekly slot on every single Connecticut radio show that will take him, including “Crazy Ira and the Douche,” which is technically a fictional Pawnee, Ind., morning zoo program from the TV show “Parks and Rec.”
OK. That’s it for now. If you would like to be included in the power rankings or move up from your current position, send me $5. I’ve got a lot of financial problems, and I’m not wedded to any of this.
Colin McEnroe’s column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Thursday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe.