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Campaign debates loom larger for candidates than voters. The immediate audience is usually small but the media coverage and campaign ads that follow them are not.

Connecticut legislative debates are indirect and stilted by design. A campaign debate should be neither.

Veteran debater and debate coach Bo Seo, author of Good Arguments, recommends 10 books in The Atlantic that show readers how to make better arguments, the essential task of a candidate.

It’s mid-June–there’s still time for candidates to read and improve.

Published June 14, 2022.

Muad Hrezi fell 500 valid signatures short of the 3,900 required to qualify for the August primary ballot in the state’s First Congressional District. Hrezi said Monday afternoon that his campaign submitted 4,900 signatures to registrars of voters in the district’s 27 towns, not 5,300, as he originally believed.

A hefty 1,500 signatures were declared invalid by registrars. Approximately 100 signatures were rejected in East Windsor and South Windsor because they were delivered to registrars after the 4 p.m. June 7th deadline.

Hrezi filed an action in Superior Court Monday alleging his campaign was hindered by the Office of the Secretary of the State’s two-day delay in providing petitions to the Hrezi campaign. The campaign also claims several of its 12 full-time signature gatherers were out of the hunt for days due to Covid-19 infections.

The obstacles Hrezi faced in collecting signatures provide another reminder that the Constitution State remains the home of some of the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation. A candidate who does not win 15% of the delegates at a party nominating convention may use the signature collection process, which always proves cumbersome.

A presidential candidate may be required to submit no signatures for a place on the state’s party primary ballot.

Published June 13, 2022.

Democrat Muad Hrezi appears to have collected to force veteran U.S. Representative John B. Larson into an August primary. Larson is seeking a 13th term in the House the First Congressional District. Hrezi, a former staff member for Senator Chris Murphy, is making his first bid for public office.

Hrezi, Daily Ructions can report, has submitted approximately 5,300 signatures to local registrars of voters. State law, among the most restrictive in the nation, requires a candidate to collect signatures from 2% of the registered Democrats in the district. Hrezi needs 3,833 valid signatures to qualify for the primary. He submitted 2,400 signatures in West Hartford alone.

A Larson-Hrezi contest will be the state’s marquee political contest of the summer. An incumbent House member has never faced a primary in Connecticut.

Establishment Democrats are growing concerned that Larson, who has not faced a serious challenge since he defeated West Hartford Democrat Miles Rappoport in a ferocious 1998 primary. Larson’s campaigns have been casual endeavors since. Larson, who will turn 74 in July, will need quickly to create a nimble and enthusiastic campaign organization. The primary will the retired state employee to do more than block Hrezi from speaking before Democratic town committees.

Larson will need some sharp surrogates to explain his reliance on special interest campaign donations. He may want to start searching now for the Democratic friend who will defend Larson’s acceptance of thousands from Vincent Roberti, the Washington lobbyists and former Connecticut legislator who has made millions representing Russian energy interests.

Ambitious Democrats in the 1st CD may respond to the most painful enticement Larson can offer to win spur them into action. The East Hartford Democrat could promise that his next term will be his last term.

Published June 8, 2022.

Fifth District Republican nominee George Logan thanked U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for her endorsement Thursday. Stefanik, once a moderate who worked in the George W. Bush administration, has followed her party to the paranoid far right.

Stefanik has adopted the racist “great replacement” theory of extreme politics. The Upstate New York Republican invoked poisonous Q-Anon rhetoric in May when she used Twitter to criticize “The White House, House Dems & usual pedo grifters” for supporting sending baby formula to refugees and immigrants at the nation’s southern border.

Stefanik objected to the certification of electoral college ballots from Pennsylvania on January 6th last year. She planned to object to the certification of electoral votes from other states but insurrectionists intervened, according to a district newspaper. Stefanik voted against the creation of a January 6th commission.

The four-term Republican replaced Representative Liz Cheney last year as the third-ranking House Republican leader. On a voice vote, House Republicans ousted Cheney for refusing to ignore Donald Trump’s role in the January 6th invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Logan told the CT Mirror when he announced his candidacy that he did not object to Cheney’s removal. The former state senator has described himself as a moderate Republican. Logan declared in his tweet that he is “looking forward to working with Rep. Stefanik to help deliver much needed change in Washington!” That alliance puts Logan far outside the mainstream of 5th District voters. It is an endorsement alert that Logan may not have intended.

Published June 3, 2022.

This week’s Left. Right & Center podcast begins with an extended segment on guns. It offers what many have not been able to summon in their sadness and fury at the massacre of students and teachers in Uvalde, Texas: ideas on the way forward.

Guests include Elizabeth Bruenig, @Bruenig, who represents the left. Bruenig, who lives in Connecticut, is always thoughtful and interesting, never more so this week.

Avik Roy, @Avik, stands on the right and offers an assessment of the politics of gun control and common ground across a wide swathe of the political spectrum.

Jessica Yellin, @jessicayellin, guest hosts from the center.

Published May, 27, 2022.

Democrat Muad Hrezi will force U.S. Representative John Larson into a historic primary if his campaign submits 3833 verified signatures to election officials by June 7th. Hrezi tells Daily Ructions he is on course to hit the mark.

Larson, 73, seeking his 13th term, would be the first Democratic member of the House from Connecticut to be forced into a primary for renomination. Larson’s only competitive contest was the 1998 Democratic primary for the open Hartford area seat.

Connecticut’s political system is constructed by party insiders to protect themselves. Local party committees select delegates to nominating conventions. Those committees usually ask incumbents to name their local delegates. A challenger needs 15% of those convention delegates to win a spot on the primary ballot. A candidate may also qualify for a primary by collecting 2% of the registered party members in the district in which the candidate is seeking office.

Connecticut’s resistance to outsiders is starkly evident on the website of Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, the state’s chief elections office. The “Candidate Ballot Access” page provides no specifics on how to seek a party nomination. “How do I get on the ballot?” it asks. “Consult with local party officials to determine how to qualify for nomination by an established political party.” Hrezi learned that many local party officials are not willing to talk to a challenger. His requests to speak to local town committees were usually rebuffed.

Collecting signatures is always harder than it looks. It is expensive and time-consuming. It consumes the resources a candidate will need for the primary and it takes time away from campaigning. Hrezi says his campaign is collecting about 200 signatures a day. He has begun submitting petitions to local registrars of voters. The diffused nature of collecting signatures means there will be errors. Candidates need to collect more than the law requires to have a buffer against disqualified signatures.

Larson and Hrezi both live in East Hartford. Hrezi, 27, is making his first bid for public office. Larson was elected to the state senate 40 years ago, defeating incumbent Democrat Marcella Fahey in a primary. Larson was the party-endorsed candidate for governor 1994 and lost the primary to Bill Curry, making his first of three bids for governor.

As of late April, Hrezi had raised just shy of $500,000, with $165,000 on hand. That is a significant haul for a Connecticut challenger. Larson has raised close to $1.2 million. He had $841,000 in cash on hand in April, according to his pre-convention report. Larson has raised a majority of his money from political action committees. Hrezi has raised more in individual contributions than Larson. That may be a warning sigh for Larson.

Hrezi is making his bid from the Larson’s left. Larson has seen this before. Two of his centrist colleagues, Joseph Crowley of New York and Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, were defeated in primaries by young challengers from the progressive aggrieved wing of the party.

Crowley was famously defeated in a low turnout 2018 spring primary by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Later that year, Ayanna Pressley, a member of Boston’s city council, defeated 11-term incumbent Capuano in a primary landslide.

If Hrezi qualifies for a primary, Larson’s biggest challenge may be convincing supporters they need to vote in the August 9th contest. There are no Democratic primaries for governor or U.S. Senate. Primary contests for secretary of the state and state treasurer appear to depend on challengers assessing their fundraising prospects. It could be a sleepy summer in Democratic politics.

Larson is familiar and well-liked. The organization that delivered a victory in a ferocious primary 24 years ago no longer exists. Easy re-elections have allowed his to forgo the tedious task of renewing his political operation. Larson is alert to the danger a low-turnout August primary against Hrezi poses to the incumbent winning two more years in Washington. If Hrezi submits enough signature for a primary, he will see that behind the genial Larson are establishment Democrats who have no interest in seeing him lose to an outsider.

Published May 23, 2022.

Republican Leora Levy’s bid for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination continues to rely on her biography. The Greenwich Republican highlights her career as a commodities trader—and she has trouble with math.

The Levy campaign made a glaring error in a statement commenting on a WTNH/The Hill/Emerson College poll released Thursday. Levy’s release attributes to her campaign manager a claim she is within the margin of error in a matchup with Democratic incumbent Richard Blumenthal. She’s not. The poll has her trailing Blumenthal by 16 points. The survey of 1,000 Connecticut voters has a margin of error of 3%.

Levy, who had a stronger than expected showing at the Republican state convention two weeks ago, may be eager to raise enough money continue repaying herself the $750,000 loan she made to her campaign, but dodgy math is no way to do it.

Levy faces party-endorsed candidate Themis Klarides and Fairfield lawyer Peter Lumaj in an August 9th primary.

Published May 20, 2022.

The Quinnipiac University Poll called Thursday night. It was the rare landline call, and I answered.

The survey took about 10 minutes and began with the usual demographic questions. The focus of the early political questions was the gubernatorial campaign and Governor Ned Lamont’s job performance. The caller asked which candidate I supported for governor in 2018 and president in 2020.

Quinnipiac wanted to know if I think crime is getting worse. As the victim of a crime last fall, it does feel more serious than what Lamont, a wealthy Greenwich Democrat, dismisses as an “uptick.” There were standard questions on the economy. I was asked to pick the most important issue from a list. There were three questions on abortion, including one on amending the constitution.

Vexing surges in energy costs received pessimistic recognition. Which rise in costs—gas at the pump and home heating were among the choices—were most worrying provided a reminder that energy costs will be a central issue this year. Candidates struggle to convey credible solutions.

There was also the horse race choice for governor: Lamont, Republican Bob Stefanowski or undecided. How likely was I to vote? How much attention do I pay to the campaign? Questions included Lamont’s handling of the pandemic and the state budget. Better off/worse off questions were included, too.

Do I approve or disapprove of President Biden, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senator Christopher Murphy. There were no questions about Blumenthal’s re-election bid. This was my first poll call since a brief 2017 Rasmussen call on Donald Trump (strongly disapprove) and my first as an unaffiliated voter. If there were questions about the August Republican primary to face Blumenthal in November, I would not have been asked.

The poll results will be released soon, according to the end-of-survey script.

Published May 20, 2022. Updated May 21, 2022.

Connecticut’s economy continues to struggle to recover from the global pandemic. In April, employment grew by 1,500 jobs, down from the 3,700 added in March.

The state’s employment reached 1,647,100 jobs in April, 53,000 below the January 2020 pre-pandemic number and 73,000 below the 2009 record of 1,720,900.

The state’s unemployment rate is 4.4%.

Published May 20, 2022.

When this:

Becomes this:

Republicans are accusing state Democrats of comparing Fifth Congressional District nominee George Logan to a monkey. Logan, a two-term former state senator, to Curious George. the famous monkey of children’s books series. Democrats have made frequent references to where Logan lives. When the congressional reapportionment maps were adopted, Logan moved to Meriden from his home in the Third Congressional District.

The Wednesday tweet from the Connecticut Democrats’s Twitter account adopts the cadence of a Curious George story. Comparing Blacks to monkeys has long been a staple of racist dogma. It is “one of the oldest and most profoundly racist slanders in American history,” New York Times editorial board member Brett Staples wrote in a 2018 opinion piece.

Some children’s books have perpetuated the trope, according to Maya Terhune, who wrote of Curious George in a Boston College publication, “[T]he series’ celebration of the oppression of an abducted monkey parallels the oppression of black Americans.”

Democrats accused Republicans of trafficking in anti-semitism with a 2018 mailer aimed at state Senator Matt Lesser in his first campaign for the Senate. After a lethal hesitation, Lesser’s Republican opponent, Ed Charamut, apologized for the mailer postcard that, the New York Times reported, “featured a cartoonish illustration of…Matt Lesser, wide-eyed and clutching $100 bills in front of an exaggerated grin.” The mailer was widely condemned.

Now it is George Logan’s turn to feel the lash of racism in a campaign. Readers should ask themselves: What if Republicans had deployed this pernicious device to mock and wound Logan’s opponent, incumbent Jahana Hayes, who is also Black? What if they had taunted the 2016 national teacher of the year under the cover of Curious George, “You do not belong here. Go back to where you belong.” It would likely not have been the first time Logan and Hayes had had that racist command spewed at them. This should be the last.

Published May 19, 2022.