The race is on: Dan Malloy and Tom Foley will face off for State’s top office (Tribuna Editorial)
August 18, 2010
By Emanuela P. Lima
In the recent Connecticut primaries, the war between publicly financed candidates to keep up with the spending of millionaires who finance their own campaigns was only overshadowed by the cloud of negative campaigning, which, in the end, resulted in more name recognition to the candidates it was intended to undermine.
Dan Malloy, who opted for public financing for his campaign, rode a wave of strong support from state employee unions and other core Democratic Party activists to overcome Ned Lamont’s four-to-one edge in spending. He referred nearly a dozen times – with little variation – to the message he believes will carry across most of Connecticut’s political spectrum.
“Who do they (voters) trust? Who has the experience? Who has the values to lead them and their state in perhaps its greatest period of challenge in any of our lifetimes?” Malloy said during a conference in his Hartford campaign headquarters the day after his win. “I think that message resonates with independent voters.”
In Tom Foley’s case, the past involves four weeks’ worth of ads aired by his chief GOP rival, Lt. Gov. Michael C. Fedele, challenging Foley to disclose details behind old arrests and accusing him of siphoning millions of dollars out of a Georgia textile mill that slipped into bankruptcy two years after Foley sold it in 1996. Those spots helped slice a 35-percentage point lead in an early Quinnipiac University poll down to a narrow 42 percent to 39 percent win over Fedele.
Fedele’s running mate, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, had more success at the primaries, defeating Simsbury business owner Lisa Wilson-Foley with 52 percent of the vote. Boughton, like Fedele, relied on public funds to wage his campaign against an opponent who relied largely on self-funding. Wilson-Foley raised more than $62,000 in private contributions through the last reporting period to complement the roughly $400,000 she provided to her own campaign.
“I would do nothing different,” said Boughton, who originally ran for governor, then decided to become Fedele’s running mate shortly before the Republican State Convention in May. He called his win, coupled with Fedele’s loss, “bittersweet.”
“We knew we were outgunned financially by Lamont, so we maximized our attributes,” Malloy said.
Malloy focused his campaign on the issues and frequently cited throughout the primary campaign his vow to protect programs that serve Connecticut’s elderly, sick and disabled; changing a tax system that overburdens the middle class; making job development a priority; ensuring government transparency and a balanced budget; and working with public-sector employees to find savings.
Foley also made it clear that he hopes the general election campaign will focus on the issues facing Connecticut, adding that he wants to sit down with Malloy and reach an agreement to refrain from using attack ads. He said he heard from voters say that they were “really sick and tired of the nasty ads,” and said polling showed that voters care about issues – jobs, the economy, the cost of state government and not wanting to have their taxes increased.
It is up to the politicians now to keep their word; if not, Connecticut voters will once again be left with the daunting task of sifting through the dirt to find signs of a better future for the state.
©Copyright 2010 TRIBUNA Newspaper
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