Good people, infected system

Two weeks ago, Colin McEnroe had a column in the Hartford Courant with the title "Donovan's A Good Guy--Everybody Says So."

I wasn't one of the people who said so, but I would.  The few times I met the speaker and the two times we shared a stage he seemed like a nice enough person.  His background indicates that he became involved in politics for the right reasons.  I would say the same about Elizabeth Esty and Dan Roberti.

Donovan's problem was that Esty and Roberti were raising more money--almost all of it from outside Connecticut.

And in the world we have today, fundraising is often the raison d'etre of campaigns.  So the inherent advantage that should come with being the speaker of the state house takes a back seat to who is leading the race for money.

Maybe the finance director who has been indicted would have been corrupt in any circumstance.  But it makes sense that because Donovan was trailing in the all-important money race his staff and supporters were more willing to accept money without concern for its origins.

What is doubly troubling is that knowledge of and positions on issues are completely overshadowed by the ability to raise money.  At the last debate where I was with the three other candidates I stated that we all needed to address how we would keep 2013 from becoming 1937 (when the economy re-entered recession due to the disappearance of fiscal support from the federal government).  None of the other candidates responded to the similarities we are already seeing in our current economic crisis.

But the other three all had fundraisers scheduled following the debate.