(Opinion) Ned Lamont bought himself another four years as governor. If he can last. The self-financing Greenwich DINO (Democrat In Name Only) was among the big winners in Tuesday’s elections. But remember what happened the last time a two-term governor cruised to a third term with a contempt for accountability and open government and no demonstrated interest in using political capital to help anyone besides himself. That governor, John Rowland, lasted barely 18 months into his third term before fleeing the mansion. Rowland left due to corruption that landed him in prison. I doubt that’ll happen with Lamont. The J.P. Morgan scion doesn’t need to hit up no-bid contractors for hot tubs or buriable bars of gold. And Lamont seems (thankfully) in good health. But as with Rowland, you can count on the upcoming years surprising Lamont. They won’t be the cocktails-at-five ride into the sunset that he might have imagined. Lamont had no real reason to seek a third term besides having nothing else to do with all his inherited money; his role in Hartford has been to block meaningful action on our greatest challenges, which will only grow more pressing. Lamont has spent eight years serving as the single biggest obstacle to Connecticut addressing core challenges. He personally took off the table any discussion of taxing the rich more fairly so that bus drivers and teachers and hospital workers would no longer pay three to four times as much of their income in taxes as do hedge funders and other Lamont buddies. He has taken off the table efforts to rein in the predatory power of state-sanctioned monopoly utility companies by expanding municipally owned green micro-grids. He has already declared dead a new bipartisan “citizens assembly” push to enact tolls — even though he himself tried in part to enact tolls in the past (before giving up because he “lost patience” with having to persuade others to go along). Now all that Covid money has gone. He has already tapped more reserve funds than he wanted to ensure reelection. He’ll need to find money somewhere — and only a certain class of people have that money. To govern, Lamont will have to show up, work, listen and compromise with people who bother him, perhaps discomfit some of his Greenwich classmates, make real choices that matter. Or not. TBH, that all seems kind of way outside his wheelhouse. (Even before this campaign’s end he was already smacking away a questioner’s camera in the most un-genteel fashion when he didn’t like a straightforward inquiry about one of his close aides’ contempt for the law.)  Lamont has always had the personal wealth to afford to do what he chooses. He can walk away and go home. Color me skeptical that he’ll choose to remain in this job a full four more long years. Another big winner in Tuesday’s elections with a tough challenge ahead: state Senate Democrats. They won an historic 33-3 majority in the state Senate, effectively evicting the Republicans from the building. To date the Senate Democrats have failed to counter Lamont’s intransigence on income inequality, public power, or efforts to defy and chip away at the Freedom of Information Act. (In fact some senators have been co-conspirators in that last endeavor.) Will that change? Or will Democrats squander their historic gift from the voters? Those are among the post-election takes in the latest opinionated vlog news summary from the Independent assignment desk — er, compost heap. Click on the above video to watch it. Reminder: As always, this video represents the opinions of one person, not the Independent itself. The post 4 Bore Years appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less