3 November—Leading up to this year’s local election, Litchfield’s Democratic incumbents are obviously running scared and showing their desperation. Certainly political candidates should never, ever be complacent.

But incumbent First Selectman Denise Raap and Litchfield Democratic Town Committee chairman Matt Dyer (who’s also a candidate for full membership on the Board of Finance, on which he’s currently an alternate) appear to be nervous and crapping their pants about this year’s Republican candidates and campaign. And for good reason.

Yesterday, Mayor Raap and Chairman Dyer bitched—or, rather, whined, moaned, and grumbled—about this year’s major Republican campaign mailing, the impressive “2023 Official Town of Litchfield ELECTION Guide.” Without a doubt, it’s the best campaign literature Litchfield has seen since I stopped doing them.

To be sure, I shouldn’t have called it “official” anything, since that word and concept tends to put off voters. Denise kvetches that “it’s an attempt to mislead the public.” But she knows full well that’s utter nonsense because the Litchfield Republican logo is prominently displayed on the page, but neither the Litchfield Democrat logo nor the Litchfield town seal is displayed anywhere in the mailing.

Denise also takes exception to the sample ballot on the back page displaying only the names of the Republican candidates. Denise should know by now that the one-party sample ballot is something both parties customarily do for their own candidates. And in this instance the sample ballot is clearly labeled “HOW TO VOTE REPUBLICAN.”

Even more desperate, petty, and shameful, Chairman Dyer has said he’ll likely file a complaint about the mailing with the selective and dysfunctional State Elections Enforcement Commission: “It’s made to look like it comes from the town,” Matt insists. “It’s misleading and it’s deceptive. It’s politics at its worst and everything we rant against when it comes to those who violate the importance of transparency.”

Duh. Lawyer-chairman-candidate Dyer appears to be serious, but what the hell is he ranting about? Misleading and deceptive? Not at all. Just clever and well-executed. And what’s transparency got to do with anything in the mailing?

Rather than embarrassing themselves this week, Denise, Matt, and the Litchfield Democratic Town Committee and candidates should have done their own brilliant campaign mailing last week. But they still have a few days to one-up the Republicans—because the Republicans shouldn’t have mailed out their literature until today . . .