Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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As concerned citizens, I know you’re following the election action this summer. Today is another big day. Let’s look for some potential lessons. Or at least lighthearted observations. We could use a little lightheartedness, people.
For instance, there’s Connecticut, where one of the Republican contenders for a Senate nomination, Dominic Rapini, has a website that briefly referred to him as “Dominic Panini.” It was probably an accident, but given the fact that Rapini is running way behind, do you think it’s possible someone in the campaign decided desperate times required desperate measures — like renaming the candidate after a popular sandwich?
This kind of stuff has been known to happen, even though it virtually never works out. Last year, Kevin McCrea, a candidate for Boston City Council, legally changed his name to “Pat Payaso.” Payaso means clown in Spanish, and McCrea felt his campaign would be energized if he could meet voters while wearing a funny costume and red nose. He had apparently missed the fact that the nation has moved on from lovable Clarabelle to Killer Clown. But at one point, when he was campaigning on a community college campus, a number of people called the police to report somebody who looked “creepy.”
And last week in Kansas, Republican primary voters were forced to choose between their incumbent congressman, Ron Estes, and a challenger, Ron M. Estes. (“M is for ’Merica”) They didn’t seem too confused, and Rep. Ron Estes won with more than 80 percent of the vote.
The point here is that you don’t want a candidate who literally runs on his or her name. Happily in Connecticut, Rapini has gone back to his original moniker in a race for the Republican nomination to run against Sen. Chris Murphy, who is going to be re-elected. Unless Murphy announces that from now on he wants to be known as, say, Donald Trump Jr.
In Vermont, the big story is the Senate nominations. Bernie Sanders is running for the Democratic line with the promise that when he wins, he’ll immediately dump it, thus eliminating any possible serious competition, and campaign for re-election as an independent.
It’s worked for Sanders before and so far it seems to be working again. His only opponent in the primary is Folasade Adeluola, a woman who just moved to Vermont from Indiana and whose major platform seems to be Getting Revenge for Hillary.
Sanders says he doesn’t want to be an actual Democrat because both political parties are in the clutches of rich people and their special interests. Not a point you’d want to argue, but the best possible way to reform the Democrats is probably not to yell at them from outside, while still maintaining a stranglehold on a safe Democratic Senate seat.
And let’s go back for a minute to Connecticut, which has some interesting contests that do not involve the names of tasty snacks. The outgoing chief executive, Dannel Malloy, has been a regular contender for the title of Most Hated Governor in America. Voters’ problems with him are multitudinous after nearly eight years of close proximity, but the biggest complaint is that the government is in a stupendous financial hole. Really, a hole deeper even than the ones on the state’s roads.
Ned Lamont, who was defeated by Malloy in 2010, is running again for the Democratic nomination. His opponent is Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, who served seven years in jail (between mayoral terms) for his part in a kickback scandal. I am going to go out on a limb and predict Lamont wins this one. Unless you believe “released from a halfway house in 2010” is a good item for a political biography.
Here’s the thing about Connecticut: To the outside, it seems like a well-behaved place stuffed with suburbanites coaching Little League. But it’s developed a spectacular sideline in politicians behaving badly. I still nurture the memory of the time when I was covering the state legislature and one of the state representatives was arrested for strangling his wife.
The Republican gubernatorial field in Connecticut features five candidates. One is Mark Boughton, the mayor of Danbury. The others include the owner of a hedge fund and the former head of a payday lending firm. This coming week, some voters are going to the polls to choose between a longtime pol and a longtime ex-convict. Others will plow through their options and ask themselves, “Hmm — who’s better, a hedge fund guy or a guy who makes money by charging poor people for advances on their paychecks?”
OK, Boughton the Danbury mayor will probably win the nomination. And he has a plan to balance the out-of-kilter budget, which is — are you ready? — to get rid of the state income tax, which provides more than half of Connecticut’s revenue. Then he will, um, you know, cut programs and save money and stuff.
Guys, please stop doing this. Nobody wants this kind of craziness. The Republicans who are running for Congress have already noticed that when they go out and brag about the Trump tax cuts, there’s a sound of crickets chirping. Try talking about something sensible. Or if all else fails, change your candidate’s name to Mark Muffinburger.
Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times.
