In over her head

MANIFESTO

Both Kevin Rennie and Colin McEnroe opine this morning about Governor Clubwoman's speech Wednesday anent the state's current financial woes. Essentially, they say the same thing: that the governor is capable only of hysteria and seems not to be able to come up with any realistic strategies to alleviate the situation.

From Rennie:

An authentic leader finds new ways to explain urgent or persistent problems, and unveils credible solutions dressed in stirring rhetoric. It requires a star turn to put it over. Somewhere among Franklin D. Roosevelt's papers there may be a draft of a speech with the sentence, "Let's face it, it's scary" — but I doubt it. Rell inadvertently revealed her governing philosophy when she spoke those five alarming words on Wednesday.

McEnroe tries to make light of the situation. In an imaginary conversation concerning her speech with her chief of staff, the governor wails,

I want bats, damn it! I want them to blot out the sky and drip bat saliva on the helpless legislators. Nothing says hopelessness and dark times like a lot of bats swirling overhead and screeching mournfully ... We are perched on the edge of an abyss inside which lies unyielding squalor and misery.

Clearly, pundits from both ends of the political spectrum see that the governor is overwhelmed by the issue. I don't think anyone should be particularly surprised (McEnroe certainly isn't; that's why he took the tone he did.): Connecticut's governor was less prepared for the job than was Alaska's—and that's saying something.

Unfortunately, as Rennie states,

Governors strive to convince voters that they embody the collective virtues of the people of their state. So it was worth sparing a few moments Wednesday to watch one who personifies a jaw-dropping case of the jitters.