Est. 1802 ·
  • Is Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont A Moderate Democrat?

    By Don Pesci
    July 12, 2026
    2
    Screenshot, Kent Democratic Town Committee on Facebook

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    “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” -- Mark Twain

    In the opinion of most political commentators in the state, including reporters, Lamont is a moderate Democrat.

    A dispassionate answer to the question might be: It depends what you mean by “moderate. That goalpost has been moved leftward by New England Democrats within the past few decades, most severely within the political lifespan of Lamont.

    The governor was first brought to public notice when he defeated incumbent U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut’s Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 2006, twenty years ago. Although Lamont gained the endorsement of the state’s Democrat Party and won the primary, he lost to Lieberman in the general election.

    Four years later in 2010, Lamont ran for governor on a platform promoting balanced budgets, job creation and economic competitiveness, sounding much like a northeastern Reaganite. Lamont’s political posture was plausible for a Democrat politician born to the purple; he was and is a Greenwich millionaire whose wife is a politically savvy investment entrepreneur, a millionaire in her own right. Lamont, ever persistent, lost the gubernatorial race to Dannel Malloy. In politics, persistence is a virtue not everyone can afford.

    Lamont struck gubernatorial gold in 2018, when he defeated Republican nominee for governor Bob Stefanowski in the general election. He has served in the governor’s office from 2019 to 2027, having dipped into his own considerable resources to finance his campaigns.

    The Connecticut commentariat regards Lamont as a “fiscal conservative/social liberal,” a politically useful label.

    But the times – they are a’changing.

    All Republican fiscal conservative/social liberal U.S. legislators serving in Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation have been replaced by Democrats who never met a fiscal deficit they couldn’t live with. The Democrat caucus in the General Assembly has grown into a veto-proof majority pledged to prevent Connecticut’s fiscal conservative/social liberal governor from becoming too fiscally conservative. The word’s “cut spending” as a means of liquidating deficits is to them a foreign locution or curse words that ought never to be mentioned in Democrat legislative caucus rooms where political matters, out of sight out of mind, are decided.

    Connecticut’s sister state has just elected to office a New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who is a socialist agitator and tub thumper. New York City is where the nation’s stock market lives and breathes – for now.

    Is Josh Elliott a Socialist?

    We are told these days that the “political energy” within the Democrat Party is on the left. By “political energy,” those on the left mean successful political agitation. While Connecticut is not New York City, it has been for many years a leftist playground. Liberals, socialists and anarchists -- leftists all -- have over the years entertained themselves in the Democrat Party big tent. They are the root and branches of a single tree. Historically, anarchists preceded socialists, who preceded communists, considered the full flowering of socialism. Communists in Russia – not considered fertile ground by Karl Marx for the flourishing of his communist state – produced Joseph Stalin, who put an end to both tepid socialists and anarchists. There can be no place for anarchists in the soviet communist state.

    Both Stalin and Hitler were socialist before they became respectively communist and fascists, and Mussolini, who coined the term, defined fascism as follows: Everything in the state; nothing above the state; nothing outside the state – hardly a conservative or libertarian credo.

    Elliott, running in a primary in the Connecticut Democrat Party’s big tent against multi-term Democrat Governor Lamont, is neither an anarchist nor a Stalinist. But, it should be obvious, he is not a Lamontist either; that is to say, he is not a moderate Democrat – a John F. Kennedy fiscally conservative, socially liberal Democrat. To put it in brutal terms, Elliott is not, looking toward a future dominated by anarchists, a loser.

    Like Lamont without the millions, Elliott has been for many years a working Democrat in the General Assembly. Like Ryan Fazio, a conservative Republican running for Governor against whatever Democrat will prevail in the upcoming Democrat primary, Elliott is bright, friendly and personable. A tousle between the two during a recent Vinnie Penn Project debate showed both were idea-men friendly with each other. The daggers remained in the scabbards during their well-mannered discussion.

    Chris Powell, one of the most trustworthy journalists writing today about state politics, says of Elliott: “ Elliott seems to presume that most Democrats who will vote in the primary are members of the government class or aspire to become members and that they can be convinced that he really will do more for them than Lamont has done, even as the governor often announces new subsidies for one group or another, also seeming to presume that the primary will be decided by the government class and its aspirants. So is there any other constituency in the Democratic Party these days - like a constituency for plain old honest, efficient, transparent, and effective government, government that actually accomplishes what it purports to do?”

    For many disenchanted Connecticut voters, the answer to that central question is -- NO. The most important political question for voters in Connecticut is – who shall decide what is to be done? When they come to understand that outside the Republican Party there is no political salvation from a status quo that enriches politicians and impoverishes the middle class, a cleansing change will occur. You cannot get to democracy by way of a self-serving Democrat Party hegemony, moderate or radical.

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    2 Comments
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    Michael Satagaj

    “In the opinion of most political commentators in the state, including reporters, Lamont is a moderate Democrat.”

    In the opinion of most political commentators in the state, including reporters, they consider themselves moderate… and educated and righteous and objective…

    Michael Satagaj

    All Republican fiscal conservative/social liberal U.S. legislators serving in Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation have been replaced by Democrats who never met a fiscal deficit they couldn’t live with.

    1. The term fiscal conservative/social liberal is a misnomer meant to avoid both truth and conflict.
    2. Social liberal might now be claimed the de facto identity of the entire CT population, whether they admit it or not.

    And those goalposts are moved without a peep.

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