'Snow White' Unbeatable as Connecticut Governor

What made Snow White, as many have dubbed Jodi Rell, an unbeatable winner in Connecticut's gubernatorial race? Her combination of two concepts: jujitsu and metastasis.Jujitsu is an ancient Japanese martial art based on weakness, gentleness, and weaponless fighting that uses the opponents' own weight to subdue or disable them. Metastasis means to change position, state, or form as a disease-producing agent from the site of disease to another part of the body or body-politic.

Before her inauguration as Connecticut's chief executive, Gov. Jodi Rell cleverly developed a political strategy. She exposed her private life to protect her long public association with former Governor John Rowland. Also, she finessed her lack of executive experience and weak institutional partisan support by cultivating an image as an independent and courageous Snow White, who was above politics and sought only bipartisan cooperation from her natural adversaries to ameliorate the major problem of metastasizing corruption facing our state and local governments.

Rell became governor following Gov. Rowland's resignation. But before her inauguration she announced that she had breast cancer, creating questions of whether she would be able to assume the state's demanding executive responsibilities. However, she broke this state's political anxiety and immediately captured the hearts and support of Connecticut's females by announcing that she would become an advocate for those women in fear of breast cancer.

There was question as to whether Gov. Rell would be strong enough to give the traditional "state of the state" address to both houses of the General Assembly at the start of the legislative session. She gave an address that was widely publicized and made corruption one of her central issues.

She pledged that she would personally interview all the holdover commissioners appointed by Gov. Rowland and remove those who did not meet her high standards of legal and ethical responsibility. She also pledged that she would not allow lobbyists representing special interests into her office, subtly challenging possible Democratic opponents to make this same commitment, which none made.

One of the best examples of political jujitsu and the use of the issue of metastasized corruption occurred when some Democrats began pushing her harder to be bold on plans to rid Connecticut of corruption in government. Recognizing that campaign contributions by PACs and special interests are a major corrupting influence, some advocated her support for the type of public campaign financing plan proposed by Common Cause and adopted by such states as Maine.

Governor Rell initially resisted this partisan pressure, taking the traditional conservative position that this plan would be too costly for this state's taxpayers. Her partisan opponents pushed harder. Then, rather than digging in her heels to resist her opponent's pressure, she used it to flip them by announcing her support for the most progressive and comprehensive state public campaign financing law in the nation.

All her potential opponents were caught by surprise. Legislative leaders had not raised this issue with their house caucuses, and the chairman of the Democratic State Committee had no approved partisan plank on this topic.

Many incumbent legislators are opposed to public campaign financing for obvious reasons: They run in uncontested elections, use traditional political book ads to raise money before the legislative session officially begins, and receive significant funds from special interests. They are generally opposed to any new system that would eliminate these resources. But having pushed Gov. Rell to act more boldly to clean up the type of corruption associated with Gov. Rowland, they had little choice but to give her their final bipartisan support minutes before the legislative session was to have adjourned.

When interviewed by the press following adjournment, Gov. Rell was a perfect Snow White. She praised all the state legislators for their bi-partisan support, commending them for working with her to make progress to meet the pressing needs of our state. When asked about her gubernatorial campaign, she smiled and said, "I believe I have a record of achievement and some unfinished issues that will support my campaign."

In the general election, New Haven Democratic Mayor John DeStefano trailed Gov. Rell by a large margin. The brilliance of Gov. Rell's strategy is that there was no way that Mayor DeStefano could have attacked her without being flipped by his own weight.