CT Blue

This columnby old friend Bill Curry is well worth reading, but I especially want to endorse his take on the AG race:

It’s partly our aged, inbred party machines. In the three-way Democratic primary for Attorney General, Chris Mattei, a clear progressive, faces State Senator Paul Doyle and State Rep. William Tong, two rare Democrats so corporate friendly they’ve been endorsed by the powerful business lobby CBIA.

Math favors the progressive. But Mattei, a former prosecutor, brought a corruption case against staff of former House Speaker Chris Donovan that produced seven guilty pleas. It was one of the two biggest corruption cases of the last decade. The other involved John Rowland. Mattei brought and won both.

Donovan, liked by all, loved by labor, was never charged but the case ended his career. The capitol crowd wants pay-back, not from the felons who sold out our democracy but from the prosecutor who brought them to justice. The result: Labor and its close ally, the reputedly populist Working Families Party, are all in for Tong, fresh off his 2016 CBIA endorsement. Shame.

I’m all in for unions. I helped organized our union when I was at legal services, and I represented it before the NLRB when management contested its formation. Still, the sad fact is that while the Democrats still have a habit of bowing to union demands, union members have a habit of voting Republican. Not all of them, but a lot of them. It would be interesting to know the percent of Connecticut union members who voted for the genius.

I first met Mattei about a year and a half ago, when he was exploring a gubernatorial run. He impressed me then, and he continues to impress. The man put Rowland in jail, for goodness sake – – what’s not to like? Moreover, he’s a nice guy, or does a damn good impression of one. I’ve met a lot of politicians, and the sad fact is that a lot of them, even many I am willing to vote for, are total assholes. Joe Courtney is a true exception to that rule, and so is Mattei.