Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Florentine diplomat, writer and political theorist. He’s most famous as author of The Prince, a realist/cynical instruction guide for new princes and royals.
VERNON, Conn.
“If men were angels,” said James Madison, “no government would be necessary.’’
And if governors were angels, no political advisers such as John Droney, former Connecticut Democratic Party chairman and supporter of Gov. Ned Lamont, would be necessary
Droney along with other angels and academics, are now offering their expertise, which is considerable, to Governor Lamont, battered for the last couple of weeks for having been too opaque concerning the wicked Machiavellian way of professional politicians.
Somewhat like former President Trump, Lamont is not a professional politician; he is a millionaire who lives in toney Greenwich, along with other millionaires such as U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal. He makes lots of money – Greenwich is a rather high priced burg – but less than his enterprising wife, Annie Lamont.
Droney is caught spilling the political beans in a Hartford Courant piece titled “As Gov. Lamont faces questions on Annie Lamont’s investments and state contracts, critics say more transparency is needed.”
Here is Droney on the indispensability of Droney: “His [Lamont’s] crew is not the most sophisticated political operatives in the world. They didn’t have people who are very familiar with all the black arts of politics who would say, ‘You’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to do that.’ I don’t think that goes on in their minds.”
And: “He doesn’t have [former state Republican chairmen] Tom D’Amore and Dick Foley, and he doesn’t have John Droney. He’s got to get somebody who is really a politician as an informal adviser that says to him, ‘Don’t do this and don’t do that for political reasons’ while he’s running for office again.”
My deceased Italian mother whispered to me in a dream last night, “Sure sounds like Droney is angling for a job as the principal Machiavellian in the Lamont administration.”
I admonished her, “There is some truth in what Droney said though.” She nodded her assent, and my dream moved on.
Millionaire politicians could always make good use of campaign advisers. The services of millionaire Trump advisor Steve Bannon may be available at some point.
The general advice bearing down on Lamont like an onrushing freight train appears to be this: If only Lamont had been wiser in the black arts of politics or, failing that, if he had thought to hire someone such as Droney, intimately familiar with the black arts, he would not now be struggling with angelic academics, journalists and the political opposition. Somehow, such an advisor would have stood Lamont in good stead. He would have been transparent, against the best advice of his and Annie’s accountants -- more like likable Ned than the dastardly, redundantly rich Trump.
In other words, had Lamont been transparent, he would have gotten a pass rather than an ill-deserved back of the hand from Connecticut’s media which, to the misfortune of politicians dealing in black arts, appear to be committed to honest dealing in governmental affairs.
Underlying the desperate necessity for erring politicians to bring aboard their campaigns experts such as Droney – or, for that matter, the now unemployed brother of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo -- is the notion that destructive policies can be managed by honeyed tongues and political experts used to massaging the media. But occasionally, as was the case with former CNN twinkling star, Chris Cuomo, reality intervenes.
To provide just one example of a potential destructive downwind for Connecticut Democrats – consider the weather. “Everybody talks about the weather in New England, but nobody does anything about it,” quipped Mark Twain.
According to energy suppliers, it's going to be a cold, Biden Winter in New England. There may still be time to open pipelines closed by Biden in a fruitless attempt to convince car buyers they should go electric.
“Just in time for Winter, Eversource warns customers of a double-digit increase in natural gas prices. Heating and electricity costs also predicted to increase,” a Hartford paper tells us.
Republicans in Connecticut may take a campaign page from Democrats in 2022 and run against Biden, even as Democrats successfully ran against former President Donald Trump, though he was not on state election ballots.
"Cold" and "inflation" are sound campaign issues, American as apple pie and motherhood. “Natural gas pipeline constraints, global supply chain problems and even a shortage of fuel delivery truck drivers on local roads place New England’s power system at ‘heightened risk’ heading into the winter, the Holyoke, Mass.-based organization Eversource said."
A total of 469 seats in Congress (34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats) are up for election on Nov. 8, 2022, and the weather in New England, very much affected by Biden’s energy constrictions, cannot be adjusted by sweet talk, however honey-tongued the sweet talker may be. Reality will trump rhetoric, trip up the anti-realist, and stuff him down the rabbit hole every time.
Don Pesci is a Vernon-based columnist.
