The Dedly Blog

The Connecticut Campaign Trail - Governor

The first debate among the top two candidates for governor happened Monday night. I didn't even know it was on. How sad is that? I knew it was coming up, because of arguments over format and who was permitted to debate, but I didn't see any mention of it in Sunday's paper. I wonder if it was even televised.

Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with CT politics, the debate was between incumbent Jodi Rell (R) and challenger John DeStefano (D), mayor of New Haven. Left out of the debate were Cliff Thornton of the Green Party and Joe Zdonczyk of the Concerned Citizens Party. While Thornton met all of the qualifications of the League of Women Voters, The Day of New London stymied his appearence. I bet those assholes have a stake in either one of the top two contenders. Hell, they probably sided with the government in that infamous eminent domain battle that took place in their city. Did you notice that with all of the outrage, the CT legislature didn't do shit about reforming the state's eminent domain laws?

Rell has a tough job running a state with a Democrat controlled legislature. While her cabinet works well with her, despite being Democrats, she can't seem to get much cooperation from the legislature, who view her as tainted from her predecessor's administration. Although Rell cleaned house, the Democrats said that it wasn't enough. No matter. Rell has sought tax relief for CT's citizens through elimination (she later tried for reduction) of the property tax on cars.

DeStefano has proposed having a windfall tax on profits made by the utilities and plans on giving that money to ratepayers, conservation funds, and business energy conservation efforts. I thought that I heard on NPR that he accused Rell of covering up a 50% rate hike due to hit us in 2007. I can't confirm this though. Since we're already paying 15 cents per kilowatt-hour (10.14 cents power generation and 5.21 cents for transmission of said power), that would be rough. We just had a 40% rate hike in our power generation charges this January. How much more can we take? It certainly makes the ROI for a wind turbine or solar panels happen that much sooner.

When asked which senate candidate Rell thinks would be best for CT, she gave a long winded explanation which was summarized somewhere along the lines of "they all bring something to the table." DeStefano jabbed her on it. "I pray that I'll never be in politics so long as to give an answer like that."

From what I've read, it seems like DeStefano won the debate. But he's down 30 points in the polls so his is an uphill climb. Democrats want universal health care for CT citizens, which is a wonderful idea, but how are we going to pay for it? I can't endorse him. If the entire state government were to be controlled by Democrats, I'd be bleeding taxes out my eyes. The "tax and spend liberal" tag holds true in my state. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I'm no card-carrying Republican. We've got car taxes (does anyone else have one?), sales tax, property taxes on our homes, the highest gasoline tax in the country, and a state income tax. We've been running a budget surplus for a couple of years now and that surplus is being put into the "rainy day fund", which currently stands at $1 billion. Can't we cut taxes? We don't seem to be doing anything about the fact that we have the highest per capita debt service in the country.

I might vote for Rell. She's done a good job keeping her nose clean and doesn't play dirty politics. She also doesn't take any money from special interest groups. How rare is that? I also think that so long as CT's legislature is dominated by Democrats, we need to have a check on their agenda. Gee. That sounds like there's a system of checks and balances to prevent one form of government from taking over. Wish we had that on the national level.

I might even vote for Cliff Thornton of the Green Party, although he's even more of a long shot than DeStefano. I like where he stands on alot of the issues and he's actually got plans for solving some of the state's problems that sound more libertarian than liberal.

\_/
DED

posted by DED at 12:27 PM

 Alan P. said...

I plan to vote for all the incumbents in the state races (OK). I plan to dump all the federal incumbents. No serious complaints with state government here. That's not to say there aren't problems (like prison overcrowding) but like you we have a rainy day fund and even got a general state tax refund last year. I don't generally agree with the bible thumpers that occupy state offices but at least I know what I'm getting and there haven't been any scandals lately. That's the best I can hope for.

10/12/2006 11:44 PM

 Mike said...

I haven't decided how I'll vote, but as you guys probably know, NY legislative seats tend to be entrenched with one party of the other. I don't think a Dem has lost in my district since they ran against the Whigs.

10/13/2006 11:37 AM

 DED said...

Mort: Good to hear that someone's state is in decent shape.

Mike: "Entrenched" is a good word for it.

Lost power today for 3.5 hours. Don't know why. Beautiful day with a slight breeze. Temp's in the upper 50's. Gorgeous Fall day. But at least I wasn't alone this time. Apparently a good portion of Danbury went down too. Maybe tomorrow's paper will have something.

10/13/2006 11:33 PM

<< Home