Written by Juliana Simone

June 3, 2012

Meriden – Given the choice between crooked and clueless, Connecticut House Speaker Christopher Donovan (D) took the clueless route when finally addressing the media in response to his finance director being federally arrested after an FBI investigation for campaign contribution fraud. Clueless, arguably an unattractive trait for one seeking a federal government position is perhaps better than an outright on-the-take façade. If Democrat House minority leader Nancy Pelosi had a conversation with State Rep. Donovan, it can only be assumed this would be her advice: Shrug of shoulder… ‘It’s all good’ kind of thing…

Robert Braddock, Jr., the fifth district democrat nominee finance chief, allegedly arranged multiple donations amounting to twenty thousand dollars to the Speaker’s congressional campaign in the amount of 2,500. dollars each to ensure a bill would not get to the floor for a house or senate vote by session end that would increase taxes on “roll-your-own” tobacco shop owners. The fourteen page affidavit details the conversations Braddock had with various “contributors” who were supplying the 2,500. checks and would “appear” on FEC filings to be genuine donators with no ulterior motives.

The affidavit is an amusing read for those ‘inside baseball’ pols who will recognize the standard inane verbage anyone has to experience when speaking with the usual campaign hires when going over the phone call dialogues. Donovan, though a king pin in his Connecticut pond of union might, may truly have fallen into the same trap as so many other candidates in choosing poorly who his campaign hired and why. More simply, there is good staff and bad staff.

Local Connecticut news networks waited for Chris Donovan to take the podium this evening for the 6:30PM broadcast but it was delayed with Donovan being late to the call. The usual twenty something staffers looked silly standing around laughing and smiling in their blue Donovan campaign shirts as if nothing was wrong. In their view, if paychecks are still coming, Donovan is the man and one needs to look no further. As long as there is a fall guy, this is how political campaigns thick in the mire will always respond.

There have been many new hires in the last few days for Donavan’s congressional bid all trying to broom away the mess into the dustpan and hoping it will go away as quickly as next week’s garbage pick-up on the curb. Regardless, voters from any party can only hope the FBI is still fine tuning the details of this illegal activity and that our own Connecticut legislature, even with a Democrat Governor, will seek further investigation through its own committee of inquiry.

Sadly, it is Connecticut – right up there in terms of voter fraud and majority meddling with California, Minnesota and Al Gore – so the possibility of ssshh, ssshh, from the mainstream media and this going away is unfortunately a reality. As former Governor John G. Rowland pointed out when this news broke last week on his radio show, and any of us in politics knows all too well, if this were a Republican, it would be a whole different story. Front page news day after day after day would be published until the candidate resigned.

The good news is there is more to come – and even if democrat operatives bury it – voters should finally get enough of a twinge based on their own work ethics and job performance reviews to see this is not who constituents need to send to Washington. Even if democrat-only voters won’t vote Republican, why not choose either former state representative Elizabeth Esty or consultant Dan Roberti in the primary who don’t have this baggage?

Now, baggage to Donovan is like luggage to Samsonite in terms of abundance, or if readers want to look at Donovan’s baggage like something never having to answer for then baggage to Donovan is like evidence to O.J. – but however his long trail of wheeling’s and dealings as a union advocate while in office is analyzed, he still has an extensive history of legislation that should be gone over with the proverbial fine tooth comb, both as a state representative and as a two term House Speaker.