Tag: John Stoehr

But it’s unlikely this mailer would have gotten any national attention if not for a president doing this best to inflame ethnic hatreds in the country; if not for a lone wolf turning Trump’s race baiting into action; and if all this were not the context for a bush-league politician willing to say anything to get attention in his quest to represent people living in Middletown, Connecticut. As it is, Ed Charamut’s mailer got attention from the Washington Post, CNN and other national media. As it is, Charamut’s campaign denies interpretations of the mailer as having anything to do with anti-Semitism. As it is, the state Republican Party appears tone-deaf, as if anti-Semitism were so normal to the state GOP as to be unremarkable. That’s more information than voters would have had otherwise. Prior to Tuesday, all politics was local for Matt Lesser. Since then, all politics is national. Connecticut Republicans are doing little distance themselves from Charamut. But that must be squared with the fact that voter registration applications are at historic levels. According to the state Secretary of State’s office, 103,436 new voters registered as Democrats, 53,371 registered as Republicans, and 168,090 registered as unaffiliated.