State Littered With Winners, Losers And Lamont

We'll begin today with a little quiz.

What are a tattered copy of the Constitution, a tea bag, a piece of string, a clump of peat moss and the severed, desiccated ear of a communist?

There are two acceptable, right answers:

Either "things Rob Simmons keeps in his pockets" or "the entire budget of the Jim Amann for Governor campaign."

I am just kidding about the second answer. In truth, the Amann campaign is not currently able to afford peat moss.

It is true that Simmons has taken to carrying a tea bag in his pocket, apparently so that, whenever he feels its warm Darjeeling-scented presence against his upper thigh, his thoughts will turn affectionately to the (to borrow a phrase) "red-faced, spittle-flecked" tricorn-hatted heckler who waits for him somewhere.

These insights came to me as I endeavored to sort out the winners and losers in what has been an exciting week in state politics.

I was tempted to put the state Democratic Party in the losing column because it lost almost every significant local election, except for East Haven. In most of the other key races, the Democrats got creamed.

But then I received a press release from Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo celebrating the "in-road wins in places like Seymour, Killingworth and Bethel."

Killingworth! The jewel in the crown! I missed this strategy. Let our opponent squander his blood and treasure on Stamford, Middletown, New Britain, Trumbull, Milford. By Grabthar's hammer, the fair towers of Killingworth will have fallen to our sword ere nightfall!

Among the winners I would list people who actually voted, especially because several races ended up either in an exact tie or separations of just a few votes. Among the losers I would list Hartford, where there was 7 percent turnout. Granted, it was not a mayoral election, so it lacked the compelling narrative of lots of people getting arrested. Still, 7 percent? Destabilized places ravaged by civil war and serial dictatorships have better than 7 percent turnout. Not Hartford, but the other places like that.

In terms of lifestyle choices, the big winners included people who are still living with their parents. Lawyer Timothy M. Herbst won the top job in Trumbull despite being 29 and still living with his mom and dad.

Darien is the town without pity. Christian Noe ran as a petitioning candidate for first selectman but was coldly brushed off by the snooty voters there simply because he had once shot a man in the neck and then, years later, had been charged as a prowler in a fairly complicated incident involving a naked woman with a flashlight.

There were extenuating circumstances. For example, when Noe showed up with the gun, the other man taunted him, saying, "Go ahead and shoot me." I'm fairly certain that was a mistake. Also, this was in 1983. He never mentioned any of this stuff when he started running. Many Darien voters held this against him, and he received only 58 votes, all cast by people who apparently believe that life in Darien is way too boring. He can always run again in 2011. Lawn sign: "Chris Noe. He deserves another shot."

Among the losers were anybody this election was supposedly a referendum about. When people say the election is a referendum about you, the translation is "You are about to lose an election in which you are not running."

This is what happened to Mayor Dannel Malloy, who did not seek re-election in Stamford. He probably would have won an actual election. He got slaughtered in the referendum about him.

This also happened to President Barack Obama, who lost referendums all over Connecticut due to inattention and slothfulness. For example, in Orange, if Obama had intervened in the question of whether to allow a big Stew Leonard's supermarket there, he might have won the referendum about him.

At week's end, as we all lay in a miasma of electoral exhaustion, Ned Lamont announced an exploratory committee regarding his gubernatorial candidacy. He then gave a speech Thursday titled: "An Entrepreneur's Approach to Government: Businesses Reinvent Themselves All the Time; Why Am I Still Waiting in Line at the DMV?" The title alone contains a question mark, a colon and a semi-colon.

There's an old saying in politics: You can't win in Killingworth with one and a half colons. In East Haven, though, it's kind of a plus.

• Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at http://blogs.courant.com/to_wit. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.

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