Well, there were certainly a lot of winners and losers this week, even without the historic presidential race.

In New London, of course, not only did the charter changes to create a strong mayor form of government go down in defeat, but so did the ambitions of all those who envisioned themselves as the city's first strong mayor.

City Councilor Mike Buscetto III had already fluffed up the proposed salary of the new mayor job as it was being crafted for the charter change. No doubt, as John McCain said of Barack Obama, he was also measuring the drapes for his new office.

If Buscetto and others who aspired to be New London's Super Mayor were losers on Tuesday, City Manager Martin Berliner was a winner. Berliner, whose job may have been eliminated in a city government reorganization, can relax and keep the drapes closed.

There are many others, too, in city government, who no doubt must feel like winners in the post-election world of the status quo in New London.

And what of Joe Lieberman? Now there's someone who emerged as one of the very big losers this week. No amount of post-election contrition and talk of bipartisanship is going to buy him any influence in the new Obama world of Washington.

I don't think Democrats will ever be able to forget the image of Lieberman standing at that podium at the Republican National Convention. Certainly Connecticut Democrats, with a censure resolution pending, will long remember the enormous betrayal by candidate Lieberman, who two years ago promised to support the Democratic presidential nominee.

I would suggest that Electric Boat is a big winner this week, given that some early supporters of Barack Obama were members of the Crown family of Illinois, major shareholders in EB's parent company, General Dynamics.

The Crowns have a long history of savvy political maneuvering, including the creation of the successful “save the industrial base” argument to keep submarine contracts flowing, and I'd say that an Obama administration bodes well for the future of EB.

It also didn't hurt that Joe Courtney, the candidate of choice for EB executives making political donations, brought home a cool victory this week.

Speaking of big losers this week, who can forget Kenneth M. Reels, the Mashantucket Pequot tribal councilor who was eased out of office in tribal elections. It is curious that it was Reels, who once helped do the easing when he replaced Richard A. Hayward as the Pequot council's tribal chairman, is now on the losing end of regime rotation.

Change, it seems, has come again to Mashantucket.

Given the change-making mindset of the Pequot electorate, I'll bet current Tribal Chairman Michael Thomas was glad he wasn't up for re-election this year. He could easily have ended up as one of the week's very big losers.

Another big loser this week was Cross Sound Ferry Services, not as the result of an election but because of the threat of an election.

The City Council voted to back down from its proposal to sell Cross Sound the waterfront property it covets in the face of a referendum in which city voters were probably going to veto the plan anyway.

As a matter of fact, New London voters were big winners this week, too, since by rejecting the charter changes they also retained easier access to the ballot. It was that easier access, securing the signatures of 10 percent of voters instead of the proposed 20 percent, that allowed citizens to remind councilors that giving sweetheart land deals to big political donors is not always in the best interest of the public.

In all, it was a pretty good week around here for democracy.

THIS IS THE OPINION OF DAVID COLLINS.

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