19 November—It must be a mere coincidence that just after Ned Lamont announced his intention to run for a second term as Connecticut’s (currently autocratic) governor, he proclaimed that he was abandoning his previously touted but highly unpopular plans to put tolls on the state’s roads and stick another tax on gasoline with his silly, fraudulent Transportation & Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P). Right?

So what will His Excellency do next? Increase the mill rate credit on state income tax? Eliminate sales tax on clothing? Dump the gross receipts tax on gasoline? He’s sure to get Republican cooperation on those election strategies.

But will he stop kissing the asses of the state’s labor unions, especially those that represent state and municipal workers and abuse taxpayers the most? Will he stop stealing money from well-managed smaller towns and giving it to poorly managed cities in classic Marxian tradition? Don’t count on it. He needs his disadvantaged-voter base.

And what will Connecticut Republicans do to (re)gain even a modicum of power and influence in Hartford? Unless the GOP can come up with a good candidate for governor, which they haven’t had since Jodi Rell, the state is screwed. So far, it doesn’t look too promising.

Then there’s the General Assembly. Even if Lamont stays in the Governor’s Residence, if Republicans can take even one house, Connecticut can be saved. (Not that it will be, of course.) But so far, that doesn’t look too promising either.

Hope should spring eternal. But this is Connecticut . . .