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Just One Thing for October 18th.

There’s a lot of politics about as we are two weeks from the finish line.  Nevertheless, there ought to be some time for serious public policy issues.  The Economist provides a look at the looming crisis that will confront governors across the legislation: public pensions.  Our political leaders have been delusional in their creation and handling of this time bomb.  It’s worth reading.

2 comments

1 Elizabeth M. { 10.19.10 at 9:47 pm }

Tom Foley has lost this middle class housewife’s confidence, trust, and VOTE.

My family votes Republican, but not this year, not for Mr. Foley.

My lady friends in the neighborhood say the same thing, more or less: that Foley has too many skeletons that he is masking with TV ads and skilled public relations. Money buys that, ya know. But all the money in the world cannot buy credibility and most importantly integrity.

Dan Malloy should stand proud, with his head held high, on his overall good results for 14 years in leading Stamford. And Malloy does not have to cover up a messy divorce. Malloy does not have to gloss over two arrests. Malloy does not have to explain repeatedly that he really didn’t ruin a whole town and thousands of workers as a greedy corporate raider. Malloy does not have to explain to us that his mansion and yacht and fancy jets were all paid for on the backs of people who suffered under a Harvard buy-out artist. Malloy will never have to explain how some of the money was used to curry favor and an ambassadorship with ” George W.” Malloy has never falsified a Federal Security Clearance document or lied to a Congressional committee about it.

Too many secrets, Mr. Foley. Too many skeletons. Too much baggage.

Mr. Foley does not deserve our trust, and he does not deserve to “BUY” the Governor’s desk with his millions spent on TV advertisements.

I am telling all of my friends to tell all of their friends: “Foley is bad news for CT, send him back to Greenwich with his raider tail between his legs.”

Liz M.

2 Jack Fairnworth { 10.23.10 at 12:27 am }

“MONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING”

Memo To: Tom Foley, Republican Candidate for CT Gov.

From: (J.F.), re: Newsweek Magazine, Oct. 25th issue

Dear Mr. Foley:

Please read “Money Isn’t Everything” in Newsweek magazine’s Oct. 25, 2010 issue.

A few main points:

— Self-financed candidates have an abysmal record and rarely win.
— They all follow pretty much the same script of “outsiders with real world experience to fix things”
— Their lack of governance experience is usually devastating to their campaigns
— They don’t manage the media effectively
— The don’t properly prepare for the inevitable exposure and airing of controversial scraps from their past
— Most self-funders flop. A pattern that repeats is an initial ad-fueled surge, then flat-line, then they get trounced, like Jeff Greene in Florida.

Mr. Foley, you are not alone. Meg Whitman (R) has spent $120 Million and trails Jerry Brown (D) by over 5 points. Linda McMahon (R) has spent gazillions in CT and still trails Blumenthal (D) by a significant margin. Your reports show that you have spent nearly $7 Million, congratulations, that puts you right up there with Ron Johnson, Carly Fiorina, and Jeff Greene (all predicted to fail).

If your Net Worth reports are accurate, this means that by the time it’s over, you will have self-funded perhaps as much as 25%-30% of your wealth on a pipe dream, and this actually could raise serious questions about your judgment and personality. Some blogs and Internet news items have called you a “self-absorbed narcissist” and “rich opportunist,” and by spending so MUCH of your disposable wealth on a doomed campaign goes beyond mere ego, it probably speaks to deeper flaws.

In your campaign, several of these telling signals for looming failure have already sounded. Let’s examine just a few:

— Your “outsider” script rings hollow when we study your 30 years of fund-raising and Bush Cronyism as the ultimate Insider.
— You say your real world experience will allow you to fix things, yet your threatened policies and programs are virtually guaranteed to cause turmoil with the Legislature, the Unions, the Health Care issue, women, and the working classes of CT.
— Your latest gaffe with Rev. Barbara Sexton shows that you don’t handle the media well. And your stiff, haughty dismissals of media inquiries about your arrests last summer painted you as an elitist for whom the rules don’t apply.
— You not only did not prepare for the discovery of your two arrests, it appears that you deliberately obfuscated them and ommitted them from any media coverage–until they were un-earthed by the Courant investigative reporter.
— You did insufficient preparation for how to handle the inevitable criticisms of your arrests, your divorce, your Bush roles, your over-statements about Iraq, and most especially your takeovers that did not end well (Bibb Textiles Corp, most especially). That Bibb scenario still holds lingering questions and doubts for the average voter in Connecticut, almost without question.

So, given the hard metrics in the Newsweek article, that only 11% of self-funders have succeeded in all races, in all states in the past decade, and given your ongoing series of gaffes and embarrassments, Mr. Foley….you are quite likely to lose.

You should face this bravely, Tom.

First, prepare a short and polite Concession Speech and have it ready for the cameras on Nov. 2nd. Second, you should be a gracious loser toward Mr. Dan Malloy. He is already trouncing you in the polls, you know in your heart that you are losing. So be nice. Smile on the way out. Shake his hand and wish him well.

Self-funders usually lose, Mr. Foley. Read the Newsweek article. You should stop wasting your money, quit the crazy spending, ride out the next couple of weeks graciously, then go home with whatever shards of dignity you can still muster.

Jack Fairnworth
Concerned Republican, Now Voting for Malloy
Hartford CT