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The next two years politically will be crazy…just crazy. The perfect fix for political junkies.

Mayor Bill Finch has just hit the midpoint of his four-year term, and already the posturing, and sniffing around, has begun for 2011. Who could step up top challenge the mayor who is quietly building campaign cash? State Rep. Chris Caruso, who lost a Democratic primary to Finch by just 270 votes in 2007. Perhaps former Mayor John Fabrizi. City Council members Bob Curwen and Carlos Silva say they want to play. Could a Ganim, be it Paul or a Joe, be on the ballot? How about a pol to claim outsider status? Retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez? Some pols are pushing her to run.

But before that we have a goliath of a 2010 gubernatorial cycle that has Democratic Town Chair Mario Testa smiling lobe to lobe as he pounds the morning veal in his Madison Avenue restaurant. Whack! Hey, Mario, Ned Lamont wants to say hello. Bang! Mario, Susan Bysiewicz on the line. Boom! Mario, Dan Malloy’s in town.

Mario does his best thinking over meat.

In politics everyone wants their pound of flesh, and high-level pols are courting Mario’s support for governor. The town chairman’s making no commitments (yet) with a Democratic state convention just six months away. Mario wants to leverage Bridgeport’s large bloc of convention delegates for a say in the make up of the state ticket. Two slots are available, SuBy’s secretary of the state spot and lieutenant governor. Who’s on Mario’s ticket menu? Too soon to say, as far as Mario’s concerned, as long as Mario has a say. You want my support? Okay, you gotta support my choice. Now, excuse me because I’ve got more veal to pound. Whack!

(Check out my daily webzine www.onlyinbridgeport.com)

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Ear, nose and throat doctors will be busy —  judging from the octaves that pulsed a public hearing Thursday night over Governor Jodi Rell’s proposal to plant a juvenile detention center for girls on the Upper East Side.

State Rep. Chris Caruso, leading the jihad against the $15 million project, summed up just about every one’s feeling when he walked into the Carousel Building on the grounds of Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, location of the public hearing, with a placard: Brookfield, not Bridgeport. Jodi lives in Brookfield.

And Mayor Bill Finch had the crowd of approximately 250 cackling at state bureaucrats when he said you know the state’s in trouble when he and Caruso, a political nemesis, agree on something.

Instead of a new facility for girls why not create a new wing at the (tax exempt) juvenile facility for boys that fronts Bridgeport’s waterfront downtown? And, hey, how about this for a novel idea: take the $15 million and invest it in an economic development project in Bridgeport that will actually generate tax revenue.

(Check out my daily webzine www.onlyinbridgeport.com)

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We are now full force into the gubernatorial cycle and Bridgeport will be a big player in both the races for governor and U.S. senate in 2010.

That ring you just heard was the phone of Democratic Town Chair Mario Testa. Democratic State Party Chair Nancy DiNardo calling. Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz too. Dan Malloy, outgoing mayor of Stamford, as well. Oops, don’t forget Ned Lamont. Hey, Mario, Chris Dodd calling.

Mario will be busy figuring out how he can leverage his political support in exchange for influencing the makeup of the Dem ticket such as lieutenant governor and secretary of the state that SuBy appears to be vacating for a guber run.

Mario has own election in March for town chair but doesn’t appear to be threatened at this point. Meanwhile, Mario will be thinking about the political possibilities as he hammers the morning veal in his Madison Avenue restaurant. That’s what I call food for thought.

(Check out my daily webzine at www.onlyinbridgeport.com)

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Sometimes it pays off to get booted from public office.

One year ago, after a 20-year run in Congress, Bridgeport resident Chris Shays was victimized by the Barack tsunami that catapulted  Jim Himes into Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District, the first Dem to win the seat in 40 years. Himes was a good candidate, well financed and his campaign did an outstanding job reminding voters to fill in all the ovals on the Democratic line, not just Barack’s.

It was just enough for Himes to squeeze past Shays.

Bridgeport is Chris Shays’  political lament. The Republican moved to Black Rock from Stamford 10 years ago purchasing a waterfront gem from retiring People’s Bank Chief Executive David Carson who had purchased it from John and Betty Pfriem, the genial owners of the Connecticut Post-Telegram, predecessor of the Connecticut Post.

Shays was never embraced by the city electorate capped by an excruciatingly low 20 percent of the vote against Himes. If Shays wins 30 percent of the vote in the city – his previous low performance — he squeaks a win. So it goes.

While serving in Congress Shays was not a man of wealth. His net worth was dwarfed by everyone else. The tax bill on his home was roughly $24,000. It was time for Shays to reinvent himself. He landed a position as co-hair of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soon came offers to sit on various non-profit and company boards. And then he put his house for sale and the number listed raised lots of brows. No way he could move it at that number.

Well, the other day the house at 37 Beacon Street closed at a sale price of some $1.5 million, roughly one million more than the price he and his wife Betsi paid for it.

Shays wrote me the other day: “We will miss our home in Bridgeport and all our terrific neighbors. Representing the people of the 4th Congressional District was an opportunity of a lifetime. I am sorry it is over but I am excited about our new opportunities. If you want it to be life can be a magnificent adventure and we want it to be.”

Shays’ political investment in Bridgeport did not pay off, but his real estate investment is quite another story.

(Check out my daily webzine at www.onlyinbridgeport.com)

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And the pendulum swings back.

One year after Barack’s historic win, a tsunami that swept oodles of Dems into office, suburban Republicans had a mighty good day with chief executive wins in Trumbull, Monroe, Stratford. And even Mayor Mark Lauretti, in the crosshairs of a federal corruption probe although he has not been charged, was validated by Shelton voters. Nice to keep taxes low.

Democratic State Party Chair Nancy DiNardo had a nightmarish night. In Trumbull, her hometown, First Selectman Ray Baldwin was clocked by Republican Tim Herbst.

In Bridgeport, the GOP lost two Board of Education seats erased by Working Families Party candidates Sauda Baraka an incumbent BOE member who was banished by the local GOP and Maria Pereira who got involved in the election after she learned her daughter had nine different math teachers for one class. Ouch.

And the biggest question of the night: should one mil be appropriated to fund library service? It passed. Big victory for library supporters. But more questions than answers. What is the funding process? What does it fund? Is it a permanent revenue stream?