Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Friday October 31, 2008

And the Blogster has just returned to the Capitol still wearing the appropriate Halloween costume for a “forum” of Fourth District candidates for Congress at the Millbrook Club in Greenwich.
I’m having a little trouble pulling my lockjaw apart – part of the protective coloring, including the blazer and tie needed to fit in at one of ther nation’s oldest planned communities.
Anyway, about 100 people lunched on roasted half chickens that were placed atop pommes and haricots verts – mashed spuds and green beans to gentle Blog readers – that were conveniently delivered to members of the Chamber of Commerce JUST as Democratic challenger started his half-hour pitch and Q & A session.
The Blogster reveled looking out over the lunchers and noticed not ONE diner used their hands to eat the birds. The result was alot of the chicken thighs went untouched.
Thanks goodness students from Greenwich High and the all-female Greenwich Academy were allowed to sit in, since they asked most of the questions to Himes and defending U.S. Rep. Chris Shays.
At one point, Shays got a laugh from the high schoolers by trying to localize the nation’s housing crisis in a town where the average home is worth more than $2 million.
“Say you have a house worth $500,000,” Shays said, pausing for a quip. “If you have a house worth $500,000, you’re not living in Greenwich, folks.”

Thursday October 30, 2008

Remember back on February 3, when John McCain appeared at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield?
Of course you don’t, that’s why you’re reading the Blogster. Well it was Super Bowl Sunday and McCain told about 2,000 supporters – along with a handful of hecklers – that if he won the GOP nomination he’d revisit Connecticut during the presidential campaign.
Guess what? He did and he didn’t.
Yes, McCain lied to Connecticut and their potential 7 whopping electoral votes. It’s testament to Connecticut’s expected imminent support of Barack Obama.
Chris Healy, chairman of the state GOP, just offered up a mea culpa.
“We still have 4-5 days to go,” Healy parsed, briefly. “I don’t think he should come here. Clearly the map is what it is. The support he has in the state continues to be strong.”
Healy said McCain’s February promise “was made in the heat of the moment” and that Republicans understand McCain has to attend to the battleground states with the big electoral votes.
“Anyway, he was scheduled to be here for a fundraiser earlier this fall, but he had a scheduling conflict,” Healy said over the phone. “In a sense he was good on it. These things happen.Certainly he’s not a stranger to the people of the state. I’m encouraged by what we see out there in the real world.”

Wednesday October 29, 2008

It was only a matter of time – in this case about 30 seconds – before unions would sniff out Gov. Jodi Rell’s “relief for municipalities” ideas released late yesterday afternoon. Amid the tax-amnesty proposal, which she needs legislative approval for, is a plan to change collective bargaining agreement that union like AFSCME today are railing against.
AFSCME Executive Director Sal Luciano just issued this statement:
“The Governor’s proposal to help Connecticut’s municipalities get through a period of instability resulting from the failed economic policies of the Bush Administration is inadequate.Her proposal focuses on solutions that have little to do with the real problems cities and towns face. For example, one of the governor’s four suggestions deals with binding arbitration. While speeding up the process may be a laudable idea, it is hardly where legislative time should be spent. Governor Rell must devote herself to finding meaningful ways to help Connecticut’s cities and towns, not just for now but for the long haul. Connecticut has serious structural problems and must act now to repair our aging infrastructure and schools, and invest in education, public safety and healthcare. These problems cannot be repaired with band aids and scotch tape.”
It’s highly unlikely that the Democratic majorities of 107-44 in the House and 23-13 in the Senate will approve the Republican governor’s binding-arbitration piece.
Rell’s plan would attempt to reduce municipal liabilities for retroactive pay and benefits by “tightening” binding arbitration deadlines during contract negotiations. -

Tuesday October 28, 2008

The Blogster realizes that he’s never pictured Sen. Dan Debicella as a boble-head doll. Maybe the Blogster doesn’t have the imagination of Democratic challenger Janice Andersen, whose campaign mailed a particularly graphic piece of attack mail this week.
“Republican Dan Debicella says one thing to get elected and does another when he votes,” the mailing says, featuring his smiling photo on a little bitty body. On the back, she picked six issues that Debicella voted against, including four bills that Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed into law on gun trafficking, heating-oil relief, emergency contraception for rape victims and the expansion of the HUSKY health plan for kids.
Debicella’s latest mailer, touts “A New Generation of Leadership” and calls for cutting state taxes on fuels; drilling for new natural gas and oil and offering tax breaks for families and businesses who adopt alternative energy.
Another mailer was one of the biggest pieces the Blogster has ever seen. The glossy 8.5 by 11-inch piece opens up to 17×22, featuring 10, county them, 10 pictures of Rep. Jason Perillo. You can thank public financing for this continual onslaught. Fortunately, there’s only one week until Election Day.

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Thursday October 23, 2008

Professor Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, this morning has put Connecticut’s tight Fourth Congressional District race into the Democratic’s column. In his web log (centerforpolitics.org/crystalball) Sabato, a nationally respected political analyst, said that a “big wave” of Democrats seems poised to vote US Rep. Chris Shays out of office after 21 years and make Democratic challenger Jim Himes the next congressman.
Formerly, Sabato had the 4th CD “leaning” Republican, but now he’s called it “leaning” Democratic.

Thursday October 23, 2008

It’s a big public day this morning, as hundreds of people have filled the Capitol’s south lobby, which is unfortunately not wheelchair accessible, for the unveiling of the new statues commemorating Prudence Crandall, the state heroine.
The smallish, life-sized bronze of Crandall includes an image of one of her African-American students. Crandall, in case you don’t know, was a Quaker whose Canterbury academy for girls included both blacks and whites. Parents withdrew their white kids, so in April of 1833, a full 30 years before the battle of Gettysburg, she started a school for “young ladies and misses of color.”
Anyway, the art work has been in the works for years and finally the bronzes of Brooklyn sculptor Gabriel Koren that have been covered most of the month with a thick blue sheet, are being shown off officially for the first time.Just another reason to visit the Capitol.

Wednesday October 22, 2008

Thye Blogster is back from a day-long symposium, at CCSU, attended by about 650 people from throughout the state, on the racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal-justice system.
Organized by a state commission, it brough together a variety of stakeholders (THERE’s a wonkish word) who waqnt to create positive change.
Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. of the Harvard Law School and the executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, boiled down one major solution. If we can cut the high school drop-out rate in Connecticut, there will be a corresponding decrease in the state prison population.
It’s more ammunition for the in-school suspension bill that’s been delayed in the General Assembly the last few years. Rather than send kids home to watch TV (at best) and hang around gangs on the other end, in-school suspensions would force kids to show up at school anyway for closely supervised attention. School administrators have said it’s too costly.
“What happens to a kid who doesn’t come to school?” he said. “We send them home, so they can’t come to school.”

Tuesday October 21, 2008

You may remember U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd as the white-haired Connecticut pol who couldn’t believe he was a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, so he moved his family to Iowa last year, then never emerged from single digits.
Meanwhile, as Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banks committee, pretended to run around with the big political dogs, the nation’s financial services and credit industries were going to hell in a handbasket.
The Blogster also remembers Dodd as the guy who got a sweetheart refinancing deal with Countrywide mortgage at a VIP rate of 4.23 percent. It must be nice. Anyway, he’s been promising for months that he was going to release detailed information about the deal, but ….just…hasn’t…gotten….around … to …it.
I mean, Dodd’s a busy many who is pointing fingers about the cause of the nation’s economic meltdown at everybody but himself. He can’t be expected to multi-task, can he?
Anyway, Dodd seems to be a uniter, not a divider, after US Rep. Chris Shays and Democratic Fourth Congressional District agreed yesterday – during their penultimate of seven debates – that it’s time for Connecticut’s senior senator to cough it up.
“I believe that the people of this country and this district deserve and should expect the highest standard of ethical behavior from their leaders,” Himes said. “From top to bottom, from city councilors right on up to the president of the United States.Frankly, I think that the fact that we haven’t expected that level of accountability from our leadership is not a small part of the situation we have today.”
Himes said it’s time, now, for Dodd to release the documents.
“He obviously should,” Shays agreed. “And it should not be lost that while we were dealing with an economic crisis, he moved his family to Iowa for a year. And my opponent is totally silent about that.” Last week Shays called for Himes to return $14,000 that U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the embattled veteran New York congressman, gave to the his campaign.
“It’s only Republicans who do things that are wrong,” Shays said, sarcastically.