23 October—The first of two so-called Connecticut gubernatorial debates last night between Gov. Ned Lamont and State Senator Ryan Fazio is one of many arguments against early voting, which started Monday. Not that last night’s show was likely to have changed any voter’s mind.

Wannabe governor Fazio, formally and nattily attired with a pressed (and probably sized or even starched) shirt under his well-fitted jacket, and a perfectly knotted tie (so perfect, it could have been a clip-on), was well-rehearsed in a few arm and hand gestures as well as several generally well-founded attack points and vague if-I’m-elected promises.

Governor Lamont, on the other hand, was dressed more casually, tieless, with an open-collar shirt and unpressed jacket. He kept his hands on the lectern and maintained a stoic facial expression throughout the performance, except for the few times his gestures, eye-rolls, and smirks clearly revealed his impatience with Fazio’s attack points. Otherwise, Lamont spoke considerably more calmly and naturally, with less self-conscious forced animation than Fazio.

Most of the talk was naturally about money matters because most people vote their pocket books. Taxes and the price of electricity. Lamont has a record on both that’s attackable and defensible, depending on who’s using it. And Fazio attacked and Lamont defended. The only time Fazio provided any substance to his de rigueur promise to reduce taxes was when he said he’d be able to lower local property taxes by, among other things, reducing unfunded mandates. Problem is, a governor can’t do that by himself.

Lamont appeared to be taken aback only once, when the subject of Terrence Cheng came up. Cheng, as you may recall, was the overpaid chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system from 2021 to 2025 who abused his state-issued credit card, among other embarrassments to the state. He wasn’t fired by Lamont or the asshole regents as he should have been, but “agreed to transition” to a “strategic advisor” to the board at over $400,000 a year, which he’s still being paid for essentially doing nothing. That helps the rogue academic pay for his glossy self-promoting website.

When Fazio attacked Lamont on Eversource’s sale of its Aquarion Water Company to the state, nobody—including Lamont—bothered to point out that Fazio had voted in favor of the enabling legislation.

Fazio has no substantive record to attack (and neither do Connecticut Republicans for decades), so Lamont took every opportunity he could find to criticize and blame the Trump maladministration for the high cost of living in the state and everything else. And he was absolutely right . . .