Mohegan Tribal Council chairman Bruce “Two Dogs” Boszum will host a $750 per person luncheon for Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s political action committee, Prosperity for Connecticut. Guests will gather at the Mohegan Sun casino on February 3rd to join the special guest of the day, Malloy.

Gaming issues will garner considerable attention in the legislative session that begins on February 8th as states ponder expanding adding online betting to their gaming portfolios. Under Connecticut’s compact with the state’s two casino-owning tribes, the Mohegans and the Mashantucket Pequots enjoy the exclusive right to operate casino games in the state. Reaching an agreement with the tribes is seen as a prerequisite to opening the spigot of Internet gambling. Negotiations can be more congenial when accompanied by a fundraising event held by one side for the benefit of the other.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was the narrow favorite among more than 600 participants who each paid $20 to vote in a state Republican party straw poll. Romney won 29% of the votes, Newt Gingrich 28%, Ron Paul 26%, Rick Santorum 11%. Others–Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry–together nabbed 6%.

The contest was sponsored the Republican Party of Connecticut. Voting began online on January 5th and concluded Friday night. It included polling places in Norwich and Bristol that were coordinated with other party party events.

Democratic and Working Families Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced today he has accepted an invitation to attend the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Malloy’s office says the cost of his trip will be $4,500, paid for by the secretive University of Connecticut Foundation.  WEF often waives its $27,000 participation fee for public officials.

Malloy was invited on December 21st to the gathering of the rich, the sort of people he snarls about when donning his populist mask. The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin provided a look at the cost of last year’s $185 million extravaganza.  The official deadline for responding to an invitation was January 4th.  Malloy, Daily Ructions has learned, confirmed his reservation today, so he won’t be included in the participant book.

Commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Daniel Esty long ago confirmed his attendance at the Davos gabfest.  The event will provide a Green-to-Gold opportunity for Esty to continue to lend a hand to his wife’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the Fifth District.

Updates as we receive them.

Quirky Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, voted at midnight and raised the hopes of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman that he may end the day as a contender. His two votes put him in a tie for first with front-running former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich each snagged a vote in the hamlet. President Barack Obama received the votes of the three locals who voted in the  Democratic primary.

You don’t have to declare yourself an Iowa Republican to cast a vote today. The polls are open at the Drudge caucus for the Republican presidential nomination contest.

Ron Paul is off to an early lead over Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is running third.  Voting is vigorous–with no lines.

For a British perspective on the doings in Iowa, check out The Telegraph’s live coverage from three reporters.  There are probably not many American newspapers with that many reporters on the scene.

There’s not as much energy in Connecticut today as there was when the week began.  Republican stalwart Ann Moore died yesterday at her Milford home.  She was 57.

Ann joined the Rowland administration in its early, rollicking days.  She brought a vivid personality and a sharp intellect to each job she held.  A lawyer, she joined Updike, Kelly & Spellacy as a lobbyist after leaving government.

When Ann Moore entered a room, you knew it.  The lady had presence.  Fearless people often do. While others averted their gaze as John Rowland’s reputation unraveled with revelations of his corrupt practices, Ann confronted the crisis.  She made a brave bid for seat on the Republican National Committee as a challenge to the decaying administration.

I came to know her better when I began writing a column for The Hartford Courant in 2002. I learned she possessed a keen eye for a trail that would lead to a story.  In a business that often features dubious leads and rumors, Ann knew how to deliver facts, often fascinating ones.

Anyone who knew her will not be surprised to know she waged a fierce fight against cancer.

Newt Gingrich’s campaign revival has the temperature rising in the Republican presidential contest. Candidates, surrogates, commentators, and wealthy benefactors have been slinging accusations at one another in the wide field of contenders. Count on the Wall Street Journal opinion page to provide a stream of thoughtful alternatives to the mud wrestling on the trail in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Columnist Holman Jenkins makes the case today that Mitt Romney is suited for these times. His conclusion: “The consensus for painful reform comes when the status quo hits the wall. It’s a myth that we don’t know what our choices are. That’s the Romney moment. His strong suit has always been to do what everyone else has put off.”

It’s worth reading.

On this date that lives in infamy, Adolf Hitler believed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had won the war.  The architect of the attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, did not agree. “I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant.”

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is inching up in New Hampshire primary polls, but he’ll need a breakthrough before Christmas if he’s going to move into contention in the crowded January 10th contest. George Will gives Huntsman a gift in his latest column. Will is suspicious of Mitt Romney’s conservative credentials and contemptuous of everything Gingrich, labeling both “too risky.”

Here’s his concise assessment of Huntsman:

Jon Huntsman inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. He endorses Paul Ryan’s budget and entitlement reforms. (Gingrich denounced Ryan’s Medicare reform as “right-wing social engineering.”) Huntsman would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Gingrich’s benefactor). Huntsman would end double taxation on investment by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends. (Romney would eliminate them only for people earning less than $200,000, who currently pay just 9.3 percent of them.) Huntsman’s thorough opposition to corporate welfare includes farm subsidies. (Romney has justified them as national security measures — food security, somehow threatened. Gingrich says opponents of ethanol subsidies are “big-city” people hostile to farmers.) Huntsman considers No Child Left Behind, the semi-nationalization of primary and secondary education, “an unmitigated disaster.” (Romney and Gingrich support it. Gingrich has endorsed a national curriculum.) Between Ron Paul’s isolationism and the faintly variant bellicosities of the other six candidates stands Huntsman’s conservative foreign policy, skeptically nuanced about America’s need or ability to control many distant developments.

James Pethokoukis on the American Enterprise blog:

If elected president, Huntsman says he would like to slash tax rates to their lowest levels since before America entered World War I and eliminate taxes on capital gains and dividends. Powerful supply-side medicine for an anemic economic recovery. Huntsman has embraced Representative Paul Ryan’s transformational, market-oriented debt-reduction plan, calling it “the model I would work from.” He’s also pro-life, a dedicated free trader and—at least as evidenced by his sweeping bank reform plan—an ardent anti-crony capitalist.

Huntsman won an important distinction for economic conservatives a few months ago when the Wall Street Journal tagged his plan for recovery “as impressive as any to date in the GOP Presidential field.”

If Huntsman is to have a moment that lifts him into contention, this is it.