Guest Blog: All Politics are Local except when they are Not

All Politics are Local except when they are Not
Part of a series of articles on Political Events in Connecticut by Tim D. Enchanter

For many months, I have been walking the streets of my neighborhood as part of a health regimen. Once in a while, one or two of my neighbors will stop by and compliment me on both my resolve and the obvious weight loss. During one of these little talks, I received a little insight which inspired this series of articles.
During another chance meeting, Karen and Rick Patrick gave me permission to use their names and one of their business cards. They run a landscaping company named Garden Keeper. As a believer in Free Market Capitalism and in gratitude for the inspiration, I will give them a little free advertising here by giving you their website: www.GardenKeeperCT.com
     The inspiration came when we were discussing the Connecticut race for United States Senate and how Linda McMahon seems to be leading in the 2nd Congressional District. Rick asked me a question which got my mental gears running: “Wouldn't  it be interesting if Mitt Romney won this state on Linda McMahon’s coattails?”
     For those of you not familiar with political terminology, this refers to a candidate at the top of the ticket helping candidates further down the ticket. Imagine a formal gathering where the men are wearing tuxedos. The men’s coats are split in the back. Cartoons often draw analogies between tuxedos and penguins because of the similarity in appearance.
     Now imagine a political cartoon where an important man is entering an important event. His coattails are so long that they drag on the ground behind him. Sitting on those coattails are a couple of less important men who are riding into this event on the coattails of the more important man. Everyone is so happy to see the more important man that the lesser men benefit from his popularity and gain entrance as an afterthought.
Now look at the 2008 Presidential Election. The idea of voting for the First Black President gave Barack      Obama the kind of coattails the Democrats have been dreaming of for decades. People who normally would not vote came to vote for history. Because these people were not familiar with other races, they would just vote for all the other candidates on the same line of the same political party. That is what politicians refer to as coattails. People show up to vote for one candidate and vote for the entire political party. Those who cannot get people to come and vote for them hope to ride into office on someone else’s coattails.
     Those of us running that year as Republicans knew we were all running against Obama. Some of us hoped Sarah Palin would give us the coattails of the First Woman Republican Vice President. Eventually, it seemed that the National Race provided competing coattails that dragged so far along the ground as to affect every race down to the State General Assembly.
      To me, this became evident in Connecticut’s 13th State Senate District, involving the towns and cities of Cheshire, Meriden, Middlefield, Middletown, and Rockfall. Two seats in the General Assembly, the 100th and 103rd Districts, demonstrated this effect as two popular State Representatives lost to challengers benefitting from Obama’s coattails. Ray Kalinowski and Al Adinolfi lost their seats to challengers Matt Lesser and Elizabeth Esty.
     The temporary effect of these coattails became evident when Adinolfi won back his Assembly seat in 2010. http://cthousegop.com/al-adinolfi The voters in the 103rd District remembered the Representative who always cares about their welfare and the vacuum left by Obama’s absent coattails dragged Esty down in defeat.
     Esty is now the Democrat running for the 5th Congressional District, hoping that Obama’s Presidential coattails will help her enter the House of Representatives. Lesser, on the other hand, was able to solidify his power. He did this so well that I feel he deserves his own article. Read my opinions here and form your own:
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