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COMMENTARY: How Republican Does Rowland Want To Be?

By Chris Powell

As Barbara Kennelly fades off the political radar and President Clinton

becomes more of an embarrassment for Democrats, from the distance of five

weeks come the sounds of what could be a landslide victory for Governor

Rowland and Connecticut Republicans.

Kennelly, the veteran representative from the 1st District, has been a

candidate for governor for a year now and still does not seem to realize that,

for a challenger, every day is precious for the chance to say something worth

hearing. Kennelly continues to drop out of sight for weeks at a time. She came

back into view last week only long enough to be photographed twice, once in

Washington after meeting Hillary Clinton at the White House with other

Democratic congresswomen to discuss the scandal enveloping the President. That

was the last thing Kennelly needed to be associating herself with.

Maybe this wasn't going to be a Democratic year anyway, and even when Kennelly

has scored with criticism against Rowland, the governor twice has turned her

own issues against her with deft use of television commercials, for which he

has two or three times the challenger's campaign finances. After Kennelly

accused Rowland of neglecting education, he broadcast a commercial touting

state government's having appropriated funds for 300 reading teachers for

elementary schools. It meant barely one extra teacher per school district but

it sounded wonderful, and the Rowland commercial probably reached more people

than Kennelly's criticism did.

The same with Kennelly's bigger score, her catching the governor flat-footed

amid dissatisfaction with health maintenance organizations. Rowland had

expressed skepticism of a proposed reform -- letting people sue HMOs -- and

Kennelly pounced, inducing the governor to adopt her position quickly if

reluctantly and with some embarrassment. But there is no embarrassment in

Rowland's latest commercial, which stresses his helping to enact an appeals

procedure for HMOs. That procedure is untested and doubtful, but again it

sounds good and the commercial probably has reached more people than

Kennelly's criticism.

At the start of the campaign Rowland was believed vulnerable on environmental

issues and Kennelly made sharp criticisms there too. So watch for Rowland's

commercial on his accomplishments with the environment.

Ronald Reagan was the father of Rowland's political fortunes and the destroyer

of others in the Republican presidential landslide year of 1984, lifting the

Waterbury state representative to victory over a three-term Democratic

congressman, and Rowland may be the same at the top of the Republican ticket

this year. If he is reelected with even half the 37-point lead the University

of Connecticut poll gave him the other day, Democratic incumbents everywhere

-- on the state underticket, in Congress, and in the General Assembly -- will

be in trouble. While Connecticut abolished the party lever on voting machines

in 1986, partly because of Democratic resentment of the results of 1984, a

candidate at the top of the ticket still has coattails when his victory margin

reaches 15 percent or so.

One Democrat who may be feeling vulnerable on the underticket as Rowland's

lead grows, state Comptroller Nancy Wyman volunteered in a television

interview the other day that she has "no problem" with the governor. Wyman may

figure that if the head of her ticket won't criticize the governor much, she

doesn't have to take the risk of doing it from down below.

And as Wyman was inching away from Kennelly, the Republican candidate for

Congress from Rowland's old district, the 5th, state Sen. Mark Nielsen of

Danbury, was practically chaining himself to the governor's neck. Nielsen's

first television commercial is advertising him as "a Rowland Republican" and

shows the governor escorting him around the state Capitol.

The commercial's association of Nielsen with Rowland is probably heavy enough

to conceal its laughable irony. First the narrator notes that Nielsen "took

his fight to limit state spending all the way to the state Supreme Court," a

reference to a lawsuit Nielsen brought to try to force the General Assembly to

implement the state constitutional amendment that was supposed to limit state

spending. (The lawsuit failed). In the very next breath the narrator cites

Neilsen's support for a new program of day-care subsidies. It's no wonder that

limiting state spending is so hard when even Mr Constitutional Spending Limit

is so proud of new spending programs that he puts them in his own commercials.

But then Nielsen isn't alone with ironic packaging. For months his opponent,

first-term Democratic Rep. James H Maloney, has been advertising himself as a

virtual Republican, stressing his differences with his own party's position on

major issues. Rowland might carry the 5th with 70 percent of the vote, and if

that happens, being a virtual Republican may not preserve anyone on the

Democratic ticket there.

The big question now may be whether and how much the governor will risk his

soaring popularity on behalf of Republican candidates for the General Assembly

and particularly the state Senate, whose slim Democratic majority could be

erased if just one Democratic district could be turned around. If he wanted

to, Rowland could use some of his ample campaign funds to advertise himself

with Republican state legislative candidates much as Nielsen already is using

his own campaign money advertise himself as a "Rowland Republican." That is,

how much does Rowland, cruising to reelection, want to be a Republican

himself?

(Chris Powell is managing editor of The Journal Inquirer in Manchester.)