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Connecticut Democrats have exposed Ryan Fazio’s latest lie.

All they had to do was invent it first.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Fazio released an ad featuring four people supporting him. Two explicitly identify themselves as Democrats, saying, “I’m a Democrat” and “I’m a Democrat, and I’m voting for Ryan Fazio.”

A generic “I’m a Democrat” heading remains on screen throughout the video, but the distinction among the speakers is pretty obvious: the actual Democrats are separately identified as Democrats. The other two aren’t. They never call themselves Democrats, and the ad never individually identifies them that way.

Naturally, Connecticut Democrats sprang into action to accuse Fazio of falsely identifying them as Democrats.

Rep. Matt Blumenthal produced a breathless rebuttal announcing that Fazio had done “something crazy.” His big reveal was that Jim Connor and Daryl Harris are Republicans. Connor, Blumenthal explained, is active in Stratford Republican politics. Harris is a Republican town chairman and candidate for state House. Therefore, Blumenthal concluded, Fazio had engaged in “fakery” and “deception.”

Excellent detective work.

Next week: Matt Blumenthal discovers that the actors in pharmaceutical commercials are not actually suffering from moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

That is a long way from proving Fazio explicitly passed off Connor or Harris as Democrats. Blumenthal supplied that part himself, then accused Fazio of lying about it.

The Connecticut Democratic Party apparently found this technique irresistible. Its official account accused Fazio of “lying to Connecticut,” claimed he was passing off Republican insiders as Democrats, and produced a meme announcing that the supposed Democrats in the ad were “ACTUALLY GOP INSIDERS.”

Yes. They are Republicans, nobody said otherwise.

For those keeping score at home, Connecticut Democrats have now reached the stage of political communication where successfully identifying a Republican who was never called a Democrat is apparently enough to send half the Connecticut Democratic Party into a frenzy.

They might as well have announced:

BREAKING: MAN NOT LABELED DEMOCRAT TURNS OUT NOT TO BE DEMOCRAT.

Then Democratic politicians and party organizations began rewarding Blumenthal’s post with heart emojis. At the time of this writing, Rep. Nick Menapace, Rep. Anne Hughes, Easton Democrats, Connecticut House Democrats and New Canaan Democrats had all joined the celebration.

This is how political fake news gets made in Hartford now: One lawmaker misread the ad, the state party turned that interpretation into a graphic, and a bunch of elected Democrats piled on. Nobody appears to have stopped to ask whether Fazio had actually said what they were accusing him of saying.

The comments under Blumenthal’s own post were even better. Stratford Democratic Registrar of Voters Christina Kazanas pointed out that there has never been “a single second in the history of mankind” when Jim Connor was a Democrat.

Blumenthal replied, “lol yep,” then added: “Did they really think no one would notice.” He also asked, “What were they thinking.”

A fair question. He just appears to have sent it to the wrong campaign.

The truly impressive part is the confidence.

This wasn’t one guy firing off a dumb tweet from the grocery-store parking lot. Blumenthal filmed a rebuttal. The state party amplified it. Someone designed a graphic. Democratic organizations circulated it. Elected officials applauded. Presumably several adults were involved at various stages, and at no point did one of them say, “Wait. Where does the ad actually call these two guys Democrats?”

Democrats could have argued that putting Republican activists alongside Democratic voters created a misleading impression. Fine. Instead, they skipped straight to “Ryan Fazio is lying to Connecticut.”

Blumenthal's response rests on a claim the ad itself never actually makes.

That is the whole story.

They accused Ryan Fazio of a lie, rallied the party around it, pumped out graphics, collected heart emojis from elected officials and strutted around like they had just cracked Watergate.

They hadn’t caught Fazio in a lie. They had caught themselves misunderstanding an advertisement — and were apparently so proud of the accomplishment they made a meme about it.

Fazio may want to thank them for the free advertising.

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