Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.

It’s the last Tip Sheet of the year and we’re taking a look at the tributes flowing in for President Jimmy Carter. PLUS, we asked the legislature's top leaders about their New Year's resolutions. AND, we're breaking down a looming question heading into '25: What's Chris Murphy going to do next?

Pols highlight Carter’s CT connections

Connecticut leaders across the political spectrum offered condolences and praise in reaction to the news that President Jimmy Carter had died at the age of 100 in Plains, GA.

“President Carter’s style of leadership set an example that ought to be emulated by public officials nationwide, most notably his self-effacing and kind disposition,” Gov. Ned Lamont wrote in a statement. 

“His impact reminds us that leadership is measured not only by time in office,” State Sen. Steve Harding wrote, “but by the enduring difference one makes in the lives of others.”

The obituaries and tributes that poured in immediately following the news of the former president’s passing outlined the now-familiar arc of Carter’s life: the peanut farmer-turned-commander-in-chief whose legacy is defined just as much by his post-presidency as it is by his single term in the White House.

But for Connecticut’s political leaders, another aspect of Carter’s life stands out as particularly important.  The 39th president once lived in Connecticut when he was posted in Groton, CT as a young naval officer. Lamont and Rep. Joe Courtney highlighted Carter’s unique connection to the Nutmeg State.

“President Jimmy Carter personified the highest form of public service, not just as Governor and President, but as an ensign in the U.S. Navy,” Courtney wrote.

Carter came to Groton to learn the ropes, literally and figuratively, at the base’s Submarine School. As a young officer, Carter served on diesel-electric submarines designed in an era when the greatest threats beneath the waves came from German U-boats and the Soviet subs designed in their image.

By the early 50s, Carter was at the vanguard of a new era of subsurface warfare, serving under Hyman Rickover, the man who would become known as “the father of the nuclear navy.” Rickover was an early and crucial advocate for the use of nuclear reactors to power America’s navy – an advance that ushered in a new generation of ballistic missile and fast attack submarines with nearly unlimited endurance.

Today, the fruits of Rickover’s vision are forged in Electric Boat’s Groton shipyard. But Connecticut’s integral role in supplying the “silent service” with its tools of destruction and deterrence hasn’t always been a given.

As Rep. Courtney highlighted in an op-ed earlier this year, the 2005 base closure plan had Groton in its crosshairs. Carter’s surprise advocacy helped sway policymakers to keep the sub base in Connecticut. “When the Navy sought to close the Groton base, and to transfer its fleet of submarines to Kings Bay, Ga.," Courtney wrote, "former President Carter shocked his home state and the Navy by publicly opposing the plan.”

“Today, eastern Connecticut maintains our proud role as ‘Submarine Capital of the World’ thanks to former President Carter,” Courtney said.

You can read Rep. Courtney’s full op-ed here.

New Year’s resolutions, anyone?

Before we officially say goodbye to 2024, the Tip Sheet wanted to see what the legislature’s leaders had on their minds heading into the new year.

We asked Marty Looney, Matt Ritter, Steve Harding, and Vin Candelora: What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Looney, Harding, and Candelora outlined personal and political goals.

Looney: “My personal New Year’s resolution is to keep in closer contact with some old friends and my political and governmental [resolution] is to take advantage of the fact that we have the largest State Senate Democratic majority in 38 years to deliver for the people of our state.”

Harding: “Outside the building? Less caffeine. Inside the building? Maintaining the fiscal guardrails.”

Candelora: “To bring our state workers back to Hartford. To bring normalcy back to the way government is provided to our residents by having them back in the office and to bring efficiencies to our state government.”

Speaker Ritter went a different direction. “I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions, so I don’t have one that comes to mind,” Ritter said. “But if I had to pick one, my New Year’s resolution is for the House Democrats to finally win a kickball game and beat the House Republicans.”

Oh, and we also asked the governor.

“I’ll let you know later,” Lamont said. “I’ve already given up everything, I’m 70!”

We’re all ears, Governor.

In 2025, will Murphy enter the “manosphere”?

As we enter the new year, there are a lot of burning questions on the minds of Connecticut politicos. Will there be a showdown over the fiscal guardrails? How will the new Trump administration impact our state? When can we expect to hear from the governor and other leading politicians on their intentions for 2026?

You can count on all these questions being covered in the Tip Sheet throughout 2025. But for this last edition of the year, we wanted to touch on by far one of the most interesting Connecticut political stories of 2024: the ideological metamorphosis of Senator Chris Murphy. 

Murphy’s focus on the issue of social isolation and the political shifts of the working class, particularly working class men, has attracted attention online (not always the good kind) and in the liberal media sphere. Since the election, Murphy has advocated for an outright departure from many traditional Democratic attitudes in favor of a more populist approach.

Freshly re-elected to the Senate with any hopes of joining a Harris administration dashed, Murphy appears poised to continue his populist shift in 2025. But how far will Connecticut’s junior senator actually go in this crusade? So far, Murphy has mainly confined this crusade to the pages and airwaves of elite media outlets. He’s opined about the breakdown of neoliberalism in New York Magazine. He’s talked about the struggles of lonely, struggling young men on MSNBC. His fight to bring the issue of social isolation into the forefront has been profiled in Politico.

Without a doubt, important policy conversations take place on these elite media platforms. But will Murphy, who has argued that this year’s election represents an existential moment for the American left, ever take his populist zeal to the platforms where young men and working class audiences actually are? And if he does, how far will he actually go in rebuking his own party?

It probably isn’t groundbreaking political or media analysis to say that those young men who swung for Trump aren’t tuning in to watch MSNBC’s primetime lineup. The working class voters of every racial and ethnic background who turned their back on Murphy’s party probably aren’t subscribers to The Atlantic, another elite outlet which has published and profiled him.

To find the elusive audiences he claims to want to bring into the “big tent” of a reimagined Democratic party, Murphy will probably have to venture onto platforms that are less friendly than the cable hits he’s become so skilled at.

When it comes to venturing outside of the traditional left-liberal media sphere, Murphy has the opportunity to be something of a trailblazer. Democrats’ obsession with the impact and reach of Joe Rogan’s podcast has still yet to yield a single high profile Democratic guest on Rogan’s eponymous podcast since the election. The constellation of podcasters adjacent to Rogan (Lex Fridman, Theo Von, et. al.) have also not seen prominent Democratic guests with the notable exception of Bernie Sanders.

So far, the furthest Murphy has waded into this emerging media landscape is a conversation with Scott Galloway, the popular podcaster and NYU professor. To be clear, Galloway is a self-described liberal, but his audience trends male and he’s been an important voice in the conversation about America’s men in crisis.

In 2025, will Murphy enter the manosphere and appear on one of the many podcasts that regularly draw massive audiences of young men? Or perhaps he will favor more left leaning voices in the new media landscape and field questions from the popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker? Either outcome, or a combination of both, could be groundbreaking. And again, this would still leave the question of what Murphy might have to offer these audiences. Would he follow Sanders and outline an explicitly progressive populist agenda? Would he echo his friend and colleague Brian Schatz in critiquing the left’s tendency to adopt the language of elite faculty lounges in their political messaging?

All of these questions await the senator from Connecticut in the new year.

Have a safe and happy New Year’s! We'll be back next week with a preview of the legislative session.