In The Loop – January 21, 2022

This week was one of those moments I felt like a veteran, elder political enthusiast as I read the just-released 100,000 First Bosses written by two-term state Senator Will Haskell from Westport—one of America’s youngest state senators.

Last month, Haskell made the front pages with his surprise announcement that he would not seek a third term in the Senate, opting instead to head to law school.

This week he’s making headlines for a book that tells the tale of a college junior who cared about where the country was going so much that he came home to Connecticut to do something about it—engaging his fellow “Gen Z-ers” to hit the streets, get the older Millennials off their butts and in the game to bring change to a state known as “The Land of Steady Habits.”

As the tale continues and broadens to the inner sanctum of the Connecticut legislature, my mind flashed back to another “change agent” state senator: Joseph I. Lieberman. Lieberman, who—while not being part of Gen Z—shares more with Haskell than one might think, starting with the fact that he’s one of the very few elected officials to pen a book about the inside stories of Connecticut politics. He tackled the inner workings of the Democratic state party and brought to light the power, struggles and war stories of John Bailey—famed Connecticut Democratic state chairman—in his 1966 book The Power Broker. In his 1981 book The Legacy, Lieberman covered inside Democratic politics from 1903 to 1980. The Legacy is a great book if you haven’t read it and one with much to offer those who follow and engage in the ups and downs of politics in Connecticut.
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