The Hartford Courant, founded in 1764 and the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper, recently offered Connecticut a compliment worth preserving. In an Aug. 13 opinion essay, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian, and Stephen Henriques praised Gov. Ned Lamont and Republican challenger Ryan Fazio for conducting a gubernatorial contest centered on governing rather than grievance, saying, in part, that either candidate would serve the state capably.
There is an agreeable Connecticut irony here. One of America’s oldest newspapers is recommending one of America’s oldest political virtues: self-government requires self-restraint.
George Washington, who knew something about factions, warned in 1796 of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” Five years later, after the bruising election of 1800 produced the nation’s first transfer of presidential power between rival parties, Thomas Jefferson reminded Americans that “every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
Jefferson had defeated John Adams. Their differences were large. The achievement was not unanimity; it was the recognition that political opponents remain citizens after the ballots are counted. Civility, properly understood, is political infrastructure.
Greenwich is doing more than following that example. With both Fazio and Lamont from Greenwich, we have some responsibility for setting it.
Our elections this year present substantial choices. Jill Oberlander and Joe Kelly are competing for the 36th Senate District. Tina Courpas faces Amiel Goldberg in the 149th House District; Steve Meskers faces Jonathan Goldstein in the 150th; Hector Arzeno faces Michael Mason in the 151st. These are not interchangeable candidates, nor should anyone pretend they are.
They should disagree.
The issues are, after all, important: the fiscal guardrails, state spending, taxes, electric rates, housing mandates, 8-30g, local zoning authority, education funding, public safety, and the proper reach of Hartford. They should tell voters what they would fight for, what they would fight against and why. Civility is not the suspension of argument. It is the discipline that makes serious argument possible.
The candidates themselves have largely understood this obligation. The greater danger in any campaign comes when the people surrounding candidates decide restraint is somebody else’s job.
Parties have their professionals. Campaigns have their enthusiasts. Candidates have friends who consider loyalty a license. Social media supplies an audience and removes the inhibitions formerly imposed by having to say something while looking another human being in the eye. Before long, a disagreement over local control becomes a judgment on somebody’s character, motives, intelligence, or decency.
Candidates are resisting that temptation. Their supporters should, too.
Indeed, friends and fellow partisans have a particular obligation to intervene when political enthusiasm crosses into personal destruction. The useful sentence is sometimes the simplest one: We do not do that here.
A campaign cannot plausibly celebrate its candidate’s civility while allowing others to conduct the uncivil campaign by proxy. Political parties should demand from their most zealous supporters the same standards they expect from candidates standing behind microphones.
Southwestern Connecticut can take a small bow this year. Both major-party candidates for governor are Greenwich residents, and this part of the state has supplied candidates for several statewide offices. Whatever one’s party, Fairfield County is contributing substantially to Connecticut’s political leadership.
Perhaps local politics still teaches something national politics forgets: proximity disciplines excess. The person denounced at noon may be beside you at a school event at six. Geography imposes manners that social media does not.
The Courant called the Lamont-Fazio contest a “masterclass in political civility.” The lesson is not that politics should be gentle. Democracy requires disagreement, sometimes vigorous disagreement.
But there is an enormous difference between defeating an argument and villainizing the person making it.
Greenwich’s candidates appear more than capable of understanding the distinction.
Their partisan supporters might do the same.
