Claiming victory in the Republican primary for governor this week, Bob Stefanowski said his campaign was "underestimated."

But how is it possible to underestimate a campaign that got only 29 percent of the vote, succeeding only because of the candidate's wealth, immense spending on advertising, and, most of all, because the remaining 71 percent of the vote was divided four ways?

Has a candidate for major office in Connecticut ever been nominated with less support from his party? Stefanowski's paltry 42,000 votes do not compare well with the 172,000 received by the winner of the Democratic primary for governor, Ned Lamont.

In these circumstances Stefanowski's nomination is less a triumph than a potential disaster for the Republicans.

Yes, some people are so disgusted with state government that they want an outsider as their next governor. But there are outsiders who are informed, involved with public life, struggle against the way things are, and have a public record. Then there are outsiders who are unknown, uninformed, and uninvolved to the point of never even voting, outsiders whose character is a mystery, and who on top of all this are demagogic but so far have been lucky enough that, when they say they "will rip costs out of the state budget like you have never seen in your life," they are not asked to specify where and how  those costs will be ripped out.

Such outsiders have not yet realized that in government in Connecticut in most respects it is actually illegal to economize and that economizing will require repealing the most jealously defended laws, which will require persuasion and politics, not just ripping.

It may be hoped that Stefanowski is a fast learner. More than that, it may be hoped that he even wants to learn. His predecessors in the Connecticut Republican Party's pathetic recent history of nominating self-funding ignoramuses, Tom Foley and Linda McMahon, thought that their wealth exempted them from having to know anything except where to send the checks for their advertising − and still voters saw through them every time.

Now that their primary is over, Republican candidates may stop talking about how conservative they are, since the general electorate doesn't yet think of itself that way. Instead the Democrats will remind voters about the conservatism of the Republicans.

The Democrats will construe conservatism as obstructing abortion, homosexuality, and women's rights. They will call the Republicans the party of President Trump, as if the Democrats aren't the party of Governor Malloy, who in this week's primary didn't dare disclose who was getting his vote lest his detestability rub off.

The last eight years of Democratic rule in Connecticut have given Republicans an opportunity to define conservatism differently − to define it as reducing spending and taxes; subordinating government employees to democracy; recognizing the failure of educational policy to educate, welfare policy to produce self-sufficiency, and economic development policy to develop the economy; and stopping state government's politically correct posturing on national issues of little relevance to state government, posturing that aims only to keep the Democratic base indignant and agitated.

Instead of conservative, the Republicans might call their ideology ordinary competence. By this measure the administration they would replace has set the bar exceedingly low. It won't be hard to distinguish competence from what passes for liberalism here.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.