1. We have arrived at that moment in the political season, about two weeks before the state party primaries, in which candidates with a lot in common must pretend they don’t in order to stand out and win their party’s nomination.
2. Candidates do this by snipping and sniping, grousing and griping, and otherwise accusing each other of being something that might be true, might be half true, is probably false. It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting attention, or, at the very least, knee-capping rivals.
3. To be sure, some candidates stand apart by appealing to principles and values. But the problem for same-party candidates is that their principles and values are more or less the same. Worse, they are already understood.
4. GOP voters know what GOP candidates believe in. Ditto for the Democrats. Usually, the only recourse is to go small, to make things personal, to get downright dirty — to score one point at a time with gesture, symbol, whatever works.
5. It’s during this time of the political season, when same-party candidates are scratching and clawing each other to stand out from a field of similar talent, that a certain trope emerges in the media, one I find insufferable.
6. It’s a mode of thinking that wishes politics were something it isn’t, that projects onto candidates things that can’t be realized, and that punishes candidates in spite of that.
7. I’m talking about the civil police, the pearl clutchers, the political commentators who “tsk, tsk” candidates for “dirty politics,” and who pass themselves off as authorities who truly get politics. They don’t get politics, but getting politics doesn’t matter.
8. What matters is selling a phony sense of nostalgia and loss, a lamentation for noble days when statesman rose above the fray by appealing to voters’ better angels.
9. Let’s make something clear: those noble days never existed. Politicians are people, and people are the same as they ever were when it comes to fighting for power.
10. Sometimes, it’s noble. Sometimes, it’s dirty. Both are optional. Neither is wrong. If there is a difference between then and now, it’s this fetish among political observers for a history that never was. That part we can do without.
11. THE YEAR OF WOMEN
The race for Connecticut governor won’t get really interesting until after the primaries, but the race for U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s seat in the 5th District is already riveting. Not for the reasons you might expect, though.
The race for Connecticut governor won’t get really interesting until after the primaries, but the race for U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s seat in the 5th District is already riveting. Not for the reasons you might expect, though.
12. The frontrunners are Democrats, both women. One is Mary Glassman, a seasoned candidate and former first selectwoman of Simsbury. The other is Jahana Hayes, a National Teacher of the Year from Waterbury who would be the first black member of the state’s D.C. delegation.
13. They are leaving Republican contenders in the dust. According to the Register, both are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars more than GOP hopefuls. Glassman raised about $380,000 as of June 30. Hayes raised nearly $300,000.
14. (A major backer of Jahana Hayes is Robert Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s dad.) Manny Santos, the GOP leader, came closest. He raised about $23,000.
15. Glassman is favored to win. She has the backing of U.S. Reps. John Larson and Rosa DeLauro, both who hosted Tuesday a major fundraiser for Glassman. Hayes, however, has a bright future no matter what happens.
16. She is a dynamic public speaker with a compelling Obama-like story that got the attention of popular U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. He originally encouraged her to seek office.
17. That women are leading the field is only one riveting aspect of the race for the 5th. That they are women running in the national year of women is another.
18. According to the latest Q Poll, voters prefer Democrats to Republicans in the House by double digits, 51 percent to 39 percent. Women voters are another level, though. They prefer Democrats by a stunning 25 points, 57 to 32 percent.
19. If this year has noble politics, this is it.
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