18 September—Having been rebuked by the Superior Court in his sour-grapes, ill-advised, predictably futile, politically embarrassing lawsuit to nullify the Independent (Spoiler) Party’s candidates on the November ballot, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Stefanowski wanted to engage in five debates with his opposing Democrat candidate. But Gov. Ned Lamont has agreed to only two debates.

So Bob is calling Ned a coward? That’s not very nice, not at all sportsmanlike, not what you’d expect from a worthy, confident opponent, even a political candidate. Rather, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a desperate candidate or that Donald Trump would come out with because he’s an unprincipled, bilious, moronic sore-loser.

And it’s not true. Because Ned Lamont is at least as competent a bullshitter as Bob Stefanowski—and a more experienced one at that. And, as we all should know, political debates are nothing more than bullshit on the one side versus horseshit on the other. Political showmanship pure and simple—and Ned appears to be a better showman than Bob.

If Bob wants to debate Ned on real issues, there certainly is plenty to get him on, since he has a record that’s wide-open to legitimate, substantive criticism. But Ned has a cadre of first-class bullshit artists to spin his tenure into the best four years Connecticut has ever seen.

Bob, on the other hand, has a website (which, sadly, few voters will bother to read) that’s replete with sharp, accurate, telling observations and revelations of how lousy things are in Connecticut. But what will he do to fix the state? All Bob has is impressive sounding airy-fairy promises that assume a fully cooperative legislature and then some. His cadre of horseshit artists don’t spin or advise him as well as Ned’s bullshit artists serve their incumbent boss.

Business magnate Ned Lamont appears to have learned that a state is not a company, that governing a state is not like running a business, even though his board of directors—the Democrat-majority General Assembly—has maintained a mutually rewarding symbiotic relationship with their CEO.

Business magnate Bob Stefanowski, on the other hand, appears not to realize that a state is not a company, that governing a state is not like running a business, and that he needs a cooperative board of directors—the likely Democrat-majority General Assembly—to accomplish anything. But campaign hype is campaign hype in all events and any voter who takes it seriously deserves what he gets.

Then there’s Bob Stefanowski’s tenure as a high-end Shylock—former CEO of an international predatory payday lender whose usurious interest rates are illegal in Connecticut—that the Democrats keep bringing up. I’m certainly not a Democrat and I just brought it up because I find loan-sharking unconscionable. And I’m sure that Bob regrets it now.

With just about seven weeks to go before the election, then, it doesn’t look like Bob Stefanowski should be making plans to move from his manse in Madison to the Governor’s Residence in Hartford. On the other hand, Donald Trump, America’s most shameless (and shameful) con man, made it to the White House in Washington . . .