Date: Fri 31-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

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commentary-Powell-politics

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When Prosperity's Bubble Bursts, Whom Does Connecticut Want In Charge?

By Chris Powell

Basking in Governor Rowland's strength in the opinion polls, the Republican

state convention did not just renominate him but also let him pick the party's

entire underticket even as he sought to fill it not with party loyalists but

rather with political unknowns whose only qualification was their ethnic

background.

The selection of the ticket was as brilliant politically as it was cynical. It

hoisted the Democrats on their own petard, mercilessly skewering the inventors

of ticket balancing and the tedious prattlers about "diversity." And it did so

at minimal cost to the Republicans, since three of the six underticket offices

are held by Democratic incumbents who have been heavily favored for

reelection. That is, most of the Republican underticket nominations are being

wasted, but wasted effectively. (Not that they ever should be, but the

political parties will be sincere about "diversity" when they start nominating

members of racial or ethnic minorities for powerful offices that they have a

strong chance of winning.)

Having been beaten at their own silly game, indignant Democrats are grumbling

about the lack of relevant qualifications of three of the four minority

members of the Republican underticket: Ben Andrews for secretary of the state,

Antonio Serbia of Stamford for comptroller, and Santa Mendoza of West Hartford

for attorney general. It is as if the Democrats' own great decision at their

state convention -- to bestow the nomination for treasurer on Hartford's city

treasurer, Denise L. Nappier, because of her race -- was any different, and as

if being a financial officer for the most incompetent municipal government is

any greater qualification for state office.

Most voters in November may not know Santa Mendoza from Santa Claus,

especially as Rowland himself continues to usurp the latter's identity,

crisscrossing the state to bestow promises of hundreds of millions of dollars

in state bonding for city development projects.

Indignant Democrats also grumble that the governor is no more sincere with his

spending initiatives than with his underticket diversity, and they resent

having to run against the "good Rowland," the Rowland of government largesse,

after three years of the "bad Rowland," the Rowland of austerity.

But as politically miraculous as it has been for Rowland, Connecticut's

restored prosperity and the windfall in tax revenue it has produced did happen

on his watch. The governor would be blamed if things were otherwise, and he

actually is a bit responsible for the current circumstances. For without the

austerity of the first three years of the Rowland administration -- without

the "bad Rowland" -- there would be no room in the budget now for cuts in the

income, gas, and business taxes, and for spending increases -- no opportunity

for the "good Rowland" to materialize. In reserving the pleasant stuff for the

election year, Rowland has practiced only ordinary politics.

And if, as his critics complain, Rowland has moved from the political right to

the center over the last four years, Connecticut Democrats also have been

moving -- from the left to the center, acquiescing in the governor's agenda of

spending restraint, tax cuts, and welfare cutoff. This too is only ordinary

politics for which any party would forgive a governor from its own ranks.

In fact, there is no supposed hypocrisy on Rowland's part that is not matched

by the hypocrisy of his critics. As the Democratic platform notes, the

governor has failed to make much progress toward his impossible 1994 campaign

pledge of repealing the income tax, and in supreme irony the income tax is

financing the tax cuts and program initiatives for which Rowland is taking

credit in this campaign. But the Democratic platform is silent on whether

Rowland should fulfill his pledge to repeal the income tax, and of course if

repeal ever came to a vote, Democratic legislators would oppose it

overwhelmingly.

Maybe his huge lead in the polls is too recent to induce Rowland to do much

more than command Connecticut's status quo, with the exceptions of his

changing welfare policy and the social-worker mentality at the Department of

Children and Families. Even there the outcomes are very much undecided. At the

Republican convention the governor declined the opportunity to challenge other

structures and assumptions of government, promising only more of the same for

the next four years. And Rowland has given no indication that he will work to

turn his popularity into a Republican majority in the General Assembly, no

indication that he is not as content with divided political responsibility in

state government as leading Democratic officials seem to be, as evidenced by

their own lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee for governor, Barbara

B. Kennelly.

Yet conservatives and liberals seem to agree in their assessment of the

governor. Paying no heed to the rantings of former state Sen Tom Scott,

conservatives now have benign patience with the "good Rowland," while liberals

are sure that the "bad Rowland" lurks just behind Election Day. Indeed, the

governor may be redeemed by his implacable opponents, the government and

welfare classes. For as was said of Grover Cleveland, Rowland is loved most

for the enemies he has made.

Whether he is in his good manifestation or his bad one, so far Rowland has

been so much more coherent than his rival and so far ahead in campaign fund

raising that it is possible to imagine not only that his huge lead in the

polls will hold up through November but also that, in a Rowland landslide,

Andrews could be elected secretary of the state, Serbia could be elected state

comptroller, and Mendoza could give a scare to Connecticut's most cynical

demagogue, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Since it hasn't happened in Connecticut for more than 50 years, simple

reelection for a Republican governor would be an historic accomplishment in

itself, but then almost anyone can govern when times are good. The real

question of this election may be: Whom does Connecticut want to be governor

when, as it will eventually, the bubble of prosperity bursts -- Kennelly, the

"good Rowland," or the "bad Rowland"? While to some Rowland seems

hypocritical, to others he still offers Connecticut more of a choice than it

usually has.

(Chris Powell is managing editor of The Journal Inquirer in Manchester.)