Fighting Fifth Debate Photo by Michael McAndrews
Sometimes two sets of good intentions collide. I can’t say enough good things about the Register Citizen’s 5th District coverage (which seems, ironically,to have crashed while I was writing this). It’s a noble effort and a must-bookmark for those of us who have Political Compulsion Disorder. It’s part of a larger effort by the Journal Register Citizen Register Citizen Journal Journal newspapers to do political coverage better, a rare thing here in the twilight of newspapers. There is currently a plan among post-newspaper cyborgs of the future to send one of their own backwards through time to kill Matt DeRienzo when he is a little boy. We must hope this does not happen.
Another of their good intentions is the notion of involving their readers in picking out questions for debates, which is how the same people who broke and covered-the-crap-out-of the Rowland-meddling-in-the-5th story were able to host a debate yesterday at which this topic was not mentioned. In some way I refuse to learn about, the readers were allowed to vote this topic out of existence.
The readers are not always right.
They think they want “substance” which to them means statements about taxes and jobs, but what that leads to, in most debates, is a lot of very empty posturing. Anybody who says anything real is immediately pecked to death by the other chickens. This is what happened to Roraback yesterday when he had the nerve to deviate from the tax Stalinism that passes for “debate” at a GOP gig. His proposal was actually thoughtful and a little closer to workable. His reward was a lot of screeching, feces-tossing and chest thumping from the other monkey house inmates. Anybody can jump up and down in a cage screaming “I’m more Rubio than thou.” It doesn’t make it true. This is not meaningful dialogue, although it does make me like Roraback a little more.
Meanwhile, the Rowland story is like one of those Agatha Christie novels in which everybody at the country house has some connection to the crime. There’s the willowy blonde whose husband was paying off the bad guy. There’s the sad Monkees haircut guy getting picked on. There’s the dogged, slightly plodding FBI agent who keeps saying the name of his town over and over like an incantation. There’s the edgy right wing dog shelter millionaire who put the kibosh on a deal with the bad guy. And there’s Justin Bernier who, by crime novel logic, must have done something really terrible because he’s the only person not easily connected to the Rowland nexus.
So they should have ignored the readers, at least for ten percent of the time, and asked the Rowland questions. Debates aren’t really debates. I mean, nobody really debates at debates. Candidates don’t honestly engage around the issues. They just ram their pre-scripted talking points into any available crevice. You learn more about them when you drag them where they don’t want to go.
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15 Responses to Murder on the Torrington Express
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Agree that the coverage by Register Citizen fine. All five candidates as profiled by the RC appear to be fundamentally sound in believing that D.C. is spending too much and that Obamacare is a fiasco that should be vetoed. I don’t know what’s up with Rowland, but what I know at present wouldn’t stop me, if I were to live in the district, from voting for Wilson-Foley over Donovan.
The voters knew the Hartford Democrats would love to turn the entire debate into Rowland feces slinging and breast thumping.
To understand the audience: A) Most don’t remember Rowland was Governor. And they don’t remember much of anything else either. B) Most prefer single syllable words and slogans. C) “Create jobs; lower Taxes” is the perfect 5th District slogan and campaign platform. It’s short, pithy, and never changes. D) Colin McEnroe is an ex-tennis player. E) The ‘Glenn Beck for President’ lady is from Torrington.
That was pithy. Thanks
vetoed
thrown out
I don’t care which Terminator version Skynet sends, take it from me, Matt is hard to keep up with. I think their only chance would be to kill Sarah Connor and hope Matt sends a reporter to cover it.
Colin clearly does not understand the mentality of conservative primary voters. What he finds appealing in Roraback is highly off-putting to the people who will actually cast votes in the primary. I will NEVER vote for anyone who is even remotely open to tax increases.
I think voters are increasingly turned off by logjams and stand-offs when the markets go crazy and our 401(k)s tank while everybody proves what unflinching heroes they are. Roraback offered a scenario for spraying a little oil on a jammed bolt without really conceding any significant territory. Much more attractive that empty and insincere fanaticism. Remember how Rowland promised to repeal the state income tax? you probably bought that one too.
“There’s the edgy right wing dog shelter millionaire who put the kibosh on a deal with the bad guy.”
Shame on the Collie for implicating an honest man in some political intrigue. And your innuendo is typical of your breed!
Dude, (a) I didn’t say anything bad about Greenberg and (b)Greenberg went WAY out of his way to make sure his part of this story got told. So I question your comprehension skills.
“I think voters are increasingly turned off by logjams and stand-offs when the markets go crazy and our 401(k)s tank while everybody proves what unflinching heroes they are.”
If you hadn’t noticed, the stock market is approaching 2007 levels. Nothing else delivers a normal return so stocks are popular for now.
Here’s something a little more substantive about the collie guy, printed as it happens in a Register Citizen paper. And there’s not a political word in it. Mr. Greenberg has a life: http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2011/07/23/opinion/doc4e29d1ae999c7854305731.txt
The journal register was correct. What I care about is making my mortgage payment, having a job and what someone is going to do for me in congress. This sore loser game Clark and Greenberg are playing is for the birds. People want to read about and hear about issues not Rowland.
The big story on Rowland would be if the liberal press left him alone! Of course Colin wants him off the air. Rowland has 100,000 listeners he bashes democrats to for three hours a day. Wake up Republicans!
Where do people get these numbers?
The company that gave money to felon John Rowland receives most of its money from state Medicaid, and federal Medicare. The associated Candidate owns companies that have a monopoly in providing services to the “parent” company’s clients. Whan you start mixing a Republican Candidacy (with its inherent allegiance to present day neo-conservative “principles”), into a bowl full of conlicted interest due to coprporate loyalty, you can expect a batch of rotten cookies. I hope we see a lot more about this issue.
The good people who have transformed the Register Citizen into a real newspaper and provided us 5th District voters with incomparable coverage booted this one by allowing readers to replace trained journalists at this crucial time in the campaign. They are trying a flawed theory that public participation will somehow delay the demise of the printed page and I sympathize. But the public would have voted against printing the Pentagon Papers to cite the one example that quickly comes to mind.
Dick Ahles