Amemo has been circulated to all the curriculum professionals in the Hartford public schools, ordering them to remove any mention of the two-party system from history and civics classes.
The theory is that the kids, burdened as they are by living not only in Connecticut, but also in Hartford, would be baffled by the notion that Democrats and Republicans battle in the marketplace of ideas, to win our hearts and minds.
What if the kids were to get a test question about the two-party system, and they started writing about former Senator and former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker, who was sort of a Republican until he was transformed into the leader of The Connecticut Party – which is sort of like the Rhode Island Party, except that there is no Rhode Island Party. And if there still is a Connecticut Party, it’s buried in the third drawer on the left side of the Secretary of the State’s desk.
And what could the history students make of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who is now an “Independent Democrat,” which is different than a regular ol’ Democrat, and certainly, absolutely, probably not a Republican?
And in any case, what do kids from Hartford know about Republicans, anyway? The city only has 10 registered Republicans, and they only come out after dark.
Some educational radicals have argued that the Hartford school kids could drink deeply of the two-party system up close, as they watch the city’s mayoral and City Council elections roll out. Yeah. Sure.
What they would have seen so far is a Democratic Party primary for mayor, in which the incumbent, running against three or eight or 57 obscure or low-key opponents, manages to “win” with less than half the modest vote – an irrelevant exercise prompting most of the losers to run in November as “independents,” instead of Democrats. Won’t find that scenario in too many of the civics textbooks.
And to be sure, there is a Republican candidate for mayor, who, if there is a God in Heaven, would win in November, sell the chamber of commerce-civic booster rights to Disney, farm out every city service to private vendors, and offer the kids a $10,000 voucher to go somewhere, anywhere, else to school.
Council Counsel
There are approximately 800 people running for City Council, as endorsed Democrats and Republicans, or angry unendorsed Democrats and Republicans, or members of the Left-Handed Progressive Workers Socialist Middle-of-the Road Party. And the Green Party.
If the school kids invited the entire menagerie to civics class as guest speakers, they would learn that many of the candidates running on the same slate don’t like each other all that much, nor can some of them stand the person who in theory is at the head of the ticket, running for mayor.
But surely, the school valedictorian insists, the Democrats and Republicans rally around a coherent platform of ideas to transform Hartford into a New England Garden of Eden.
Well, no. Mayor Eddie Perez has exiled all the visionaries and prophets to the Gulag and, through the magic of a charter revision, is a “strong mayor,” chairman of the school board, the head of the school building committee, the chairman of the Parks and Recreation and Sewer and Power Generation commissions, and the only person in town worth seeking out about much of anything at all.
That, in part, is why hardly anybody voted in the Democratic mayoral primary – and why only 15 people in town can name the candidates running for City Council. Knowing their names would have as much relevance as knowing the name of the minority leader of the Iraqi parliament.
As a special assignment, the valedictorians of the city’s three high schools prepared a term paper on Hartford city politics, recommending nonpartisan elections, given the lack of coherence that the present system offers – and the absurdity of freezing out most Republicans from civic life, in a city that can’t afford to dismiss intelligent, engaged folks of whatever political persuasion.
For extra credit, the kids also proposed a return to a council-manager form of government, suggesting that in a city where civic engagement is dysfunctional, the people would be best served by a professional manager who can pave the streets, kill the rats, and stop subsidizing empty development sites.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
