A Lesser Candidate

As if the Connecticut General Assembly didn't already have too many liberal post-college adolescents who aspire to political grandeur while living in their parents' basement and wearing their dad's ill-fitting suit to work, now we get treated to the aptly named Matt Lesser.

Lesser is running for the 100th District in Middletown, and apparently intends to focus his keen and youthful energy on public policy questions while simultaneously dealing with confusing hormonal urges, new sprouts of downy hair on his chest and struggling with the question of when he'll need his first shave.

Lesser's campaign was today's damp pants highlight over at My Left Nutmeg. There's a twenty minute video there too where you can watch Matt's family and friends watch him give a speech with his head down reading off a note pad on a porch.

Some think that having an extraordinarily young candidate is a good thing; you get fresh ideas and energy. Unfortunately, what you usually get electing such children is immaturity, arrogance, and an office-holder irretrievably out of his depth.

Lesser's resume fascinates. You should check it out on his biography page, which includes a picture that is supposed to be the candidate meeting a constituent, but instead looks like a mom about to give her kid his Scooby-Doo lunch box before he catches the bus for class pictures day at school.

Shockingly, Wesleyan University has belched forth another liberal politico onto our streets. This one was president of the state College Democrats while there. He flatters himself by taking credit for Joe Courtney's victory in the 2nd district because he stopped some drunken UConn students from dropping bing cherries out of their asses into keg cups long enough for them to cast some votes.

Apparently Lesser got himself elected to a land use board in Middletown on the radical platform of actually being in favor of open space, a brave and controversial stance.

Perhaps the most perplexing thing about his half-bio is the passage that concludes that he "...works as Executive Director of an organization working to increase opportunities for young people interested in public service..." What the Hell does that mean? And why won't he name the organization? Strange. Doesn't sound like a real job to me, and it probably isn't.

So who's he running against? Republican incumbent Representative Ray Kalinowski, who is hardly a long-time incumbent, first elected in 2002. Kalinowski also served as Durham First Selectman from 1997-2001. He is an Air Force veteran and a former Secret Service Agent. Lesser is no competition for that kind of experience and service.

Lesser is trying to make a big deal about home heating oil prices. And indeed, it is an important issue. Maybe he can ask his fellow Democrats that currently have a tremendous legislative majority why they tax the oil so much, and why they haven't done a damned thing to help, and instead have glommed on to a plan by our Republican Governor.

Lesser is the archetypal liberal kid, probably well-meaning, but with too little of life under his belt to know what he's doing. His type are led around by the nose by political bosses all the time. Lesser doesn't want to lower your gas tax, and in fact apparently wants to raise your income tax to do away with that pesky property tax.

With Lesser, you will pay morer.