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Incumbent politicians whose campaign treasuries overfloweth -- i.e., all major officeholders in Connecticut -- are used to hiding in plain sight during election periods. By such means they avoid defending their records in office. Depending heavily upon the reliable tolerance of a friendly media and the disinterest of many voters, incumbents can well afford to ignore their political opponents. Equally egregious on the part of the refuseniks is a disinclination to submit to media buffeting.

Here in Connecticut, it is expected that U.S. Senator Chris Murphy will, if possible, ignore his Republican opponent, Matt Corey.

The perverse, anti-democratic refusal to engage in public discussion with one’s political opponents is the most effective political instrument in the toolbox of incumbents; that and a campaign war chest brimming with contributions acquired from the incumbent’s pampered special interests groups. Connecticut Democrats depend heavily on public employee unions for campaign support – both monetary contributions and feet-on-the-ground campaign workers -- and the unions depend upon incumbent Democrats, a hefty majority in Connecticut’s General Assembly, for political succor, a case of one hand pretending not to know what the other hand is doing while the hands are engaged in a soothing and prolonged bout of back scratching.

Asked his reaction to a bit of criticism launched at him by Corey, Murphy responded in the accent of a lord of the manor dismissing a lowly serf. His chief business was not to answer why but to work tirelessly on behalf of his constituents in Connecticut. Murphy may have been tearing a page from the campaign playbook of prospective Democrat Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

To date, Harris’ presidential campaign has been short on policy, and she has not engaged the fabled nonpartisan media. Even that part of the media that is not nonpartisan is beginning to notice it has been shunned for three weeks after President Joe Biden reluctantly turned the keys of his kingdom over to Harris and her vice presidential choice Tim Walz.

The Associated Press (AP) has in the past been unusually tolerant of both Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz and far less tolerant of former President Donald Trump. When Harris borrowed a Trump strategy – a promise of the former president not to tax the tips of underwater hospitality agents – the AP noted in a lede to a story, “As DNC [the Democrat National Convention] nears, Harris camp cautious with policy rollout,” that Harris is “trying to outmaneuver former President Donald Trump and address old vulnerabilities on her policy positions as she starts to fill in how she would govern if elected in November.”

There are no policy prescriptions on the Harris website, and plagiarizing an opponent’s policy on tipping hospitality staff may be a step towards transparency, but it is a baby step. Trump no doubt will declare that policy plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery in his case, but he is certain to notice that Harris is a piker when compared to Biden’s audacious feats of plagiarism.

Political wags are asking what other items do Harris and Walz plan to steal from Trump and Vance?

There are in the AP report tremulous indications of a tense dissatisfaction: “Now, after four years of following President Joe Biden’s lead, Harris is taking a cautious approach to unveiling a policy vision in her own right.”

We do tend to forget that the Harris-Walz reset will be set by a Vice President who was in step for four years with Biden’s foreign and domestic policy prescriptions, not at all unusual for vice presidents. But how does one square the circle when departing from a policy one has vigorously supported for four long years?

“When Harris inherited Biden’s political operation in late July,” the AP report notes, “ Harris’ “campaign website was quietly scrubbed of the six-point ‘issues’ page  that framed the race against Trump, including expanding voting protections and restoring nationwide access to abortion. Instead, Harris has peppered her speeches – so far heavy on biography for herself and her running mate – with broad goals like ‘building up the middle class.”

Harris-Walz policy specifics are exceedingly rare. And then there is this: “In her first weeks as a candidate, Harris’ most pronounced policy moves have been to back away from liberal [read: progressive] stances she took in her failed 2020 bid for the White House, including proposals to ban fracking, establish a single payer health care system and decriminalize illegal border crossings.”

Should we anticipate more Trump plagiarism?

These few graphs indicate that the traditional Harris-Walz presidential honeymoon has now drawn to a shattering close.

Unfortunately for Murphy, there is no honeymoon for Connecticut’s two-term Junior U.S. Senator.

Asked whether Murphy should enjoy, in part or whole, a honeymoon period during the next few months before the upcoming November election, Corey likely would reply that it all would depend on Connecticut’s objectively nonpartisan media.

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