Dan Malloy’s First Big State Spending Decision.
Dan Malloy’s convincing primary win over Ned Lamont makes him the leader of the Democratic party and the favorite to become Connecticut’s next governor. If he does win in November, the former Stamford mayor will face many difficult tax and spending issues. He’s intent on making changes in the tax system that will require many state residents to pay more. Malloy will also have to persuade the public that the state’s powerful political and governing classes are making sacrifices, too.
Malloy ought to oppose the legislature’s attempt to double his taxpayer-financed campaign bonanza from $3 million to $6 million for the fall campaign. The increase in the grant to a candidate for governor will benefit only one man: Dan Malloy. That’s a very big bonus to a man who says on his campaign website that he is “committed to getting our fiscal house in order.” He adds, “We cannot truly fix our system of taxation without spending more wisely.”
Ned Lamont outspent Malloy by nearly 4 to 1 and lost in a landslide. Without the extra pile of cash the Democrats in the legislature want to give him, Malloy will have received more than $5.25 million in public money for him to win a new job. That will seem like enough for the thousands in Connecticut who’ve lost theirs. For Malloy’s Democratic allies to hand him an additional $3 million for ads, signs, and car rentals will mean a new age is not at hand, only a worse one is dawning.
14 comments
C’mon, the extra $$$ is Roy O’s retirement kitty. Obviously we can short the police or the nursing homes so a lifetime of political consulting can be adequately compensated by the taxpayer
Ned Lamont has a terrible personality. I don’t mean that he’s a jerk or anything, just that, as he has noted himself, he is quite simply not a natural politician. In debates, he looks as though he’s the plucky rich kid fighting to become president of the student council. He just doesn’t ooze “leadership,” and with that carefully coifed side-part looks every part the elitist he is.
Well, Tom Foley is about ten times worse. He has a natural tendency to mumble, and kind of looks like your evil great uncle. He says things that aren’t necessarily stupid, but are things a politician shouldn’t say out loud (cancer… patient… wigs). Unlike Ned, he has some serious skeletons in his closet…. and those are just the ones we know about. One never got the sense that the Fedele campaign really had a world class opposition research operation. Finally, I don’t care what anyone says about his nomination vindicating his campaign managers, HE BLEW A 35 POINT LEAD AFTER BEING ON THE AIR FOR MORE THAN A YEAR.
So Kevin is right. Dan Malloy already beat a better opponent, Ned Lamont, while being underfunded. If there was ever an opponent that you could take a big chance against, it’s Tom Foley. Can you imagine the press conference!? Dan comes out on the steps of the capitol and instructs Chris “I supported Lamont” Donovan that even if he gets the votes for an override, Dan will not accept additional public funds. He goes on to talk about how everyone will be required to make sacrifices in a Malloy administration, and he will be the first, before he’s even elected, and how “every penny counts” blah blah blah.
Or Mr. Cheshire will be right, and the paid consultants will never allow it. You know, since they need to be paid and all. Sigh.
Fuzzy, you are from another planet. Malloy did not beat a “better candidate,” because Lamont has yet to come up with an original campaign idea and is hardly “better.” Also, don’t be fooled by Foley’s performance in the primary: it was a three-way race, in which about 62% of voters said that they wanted someone other than an establishment candidate. Without Griebel, that race would have been a blowout.
Connecticut needs someone who will walk into the Capitol, not constrained by prior misconceptions of how this State should be governed, and will turn our entire State government — its budgets, its philosophies and its entire way of life — upside down. That candidate is Tom Foley, not Dan Malloy and certainly not Ned Lamont.
For what it’s worth: I think it’s pretty safe to assume that a multimillionaire CEO/investor like Mr. Foley has made use of the usual high-powered tax lawyers to ensure that he pays as little in taxes as he can get away with – AND that he has avoided at least $3 million in tax payments along the way. It’s a privilege of his class.
There are also urban ministers that need to be paid. I recall when Ed Rollins admitted the NJ Republicans did that there was a national firestorm. I expect the New Haven Independent article on this will quickly be flushed down the memory hole
Observer… give me a break, most Griebel votes would have likely gone to Fedele or stayed home.
Griebel is an interesting cat… given Tom’s razor thin victory of Fedele, had Oz dropped out and endorsed either Fedele or Foley a week or two before the election, he could have played kingmaker. It’ll be fun to see where he goes from here.
Finally, Observer, you don’t think Foley will do things differently? Notice that he can’t truly say he is a “self funded”candidate because he has loaned rather than given money to his campaign. Should he win, people will be able to donate money to erase his debt. What do you think will motivate people to give money… altruism? There’s likely to be a large debt, meaning that if Tom wins, lots of opportunity to become a “friend of the Governor.”
Fuzzy, live from Pluto, the only connection between the Griebel and Fedele platforms is that they’re both tax-and-spend liberals. I think that the Griebel voters would have gone to Foley, because both Griebel and Foley are “outsiders,” rather than to Fedele, even though both Griebel and Fedele are Democrats.
Also, I can’t quite understand the basis for your criticism of Foley. First you call him a rich guy trying to buy the office, and now you’re ripping him for actually raising money INSTEAD of trying to buy the office? Which is it? The bottom line is that one candidate’s candidacy is costing this state $3 million (about to be $6 million, thanks, Democrats — no, really, money grows on trees, honest) and the other isn’t costing me a dime. Take a guess as top which one will get my vote.
I haven’t criticized Tom for trying to “buy” the office. That would be silly as trends seem to show that office can rarely be “bought”… just ask Jon Corzine. I’ve criticized him for being an awful politician and terrible public speaker.
I am, however, critical of loaning money to campaigns. By loaning money to his campaign instead of gifting it, Foley is creating a back-loaded and dangerous system for giving. Think about it. Normally, you give donations to a candidate without a guarantee that they will win. Maybe your donation pays off, maybe it doesn’t. But by being permitted to donate to erase campaign debt AFTER someone wins office, you are essentially guaranteed that your donation will buy access. In fact, many folks and entities will feel COMPELLED to give, for this precise reason.
CEP is no good. But neither are campaign loans by candidates.
Have the League of Women Voters interview each candidate to ascertain his or her position on, say, the top twenty issues that anyone cares about in that particular race. Let the League write up and summarize the answers. Let each candidate review and sign-off on the accuracy of the summary. Then let the League create compilation documents geographically appropriate for each voter. The state then pays to print these compilations (in every language conceivable) and to mail them to every voter (twice, let’s say, before voting day) — and to make them available in libraries, town halls, senior centers, etc., and online (with an audio version as well).
And that’s it. Ban the crap out of the crap that now passes for “election campaigning.”
Fair, equitable, accurate, sufficient… and merciful.
“League of Women Voters” as an impartial entity. Wow ct bill I never knew you were such a comedian! Someone better call 911 and send them to my house, I’m still laughing so hard I need oxygen.
How about letting every candidate pretend to be an incumbent and give them free mailings before the election that , like franked mail, can’t mention their opponent. We could buy up 30 second time spots on TV the week before the election and give them to candidates on the condition they do “talking head” ads that don’t mention their opponents.
Voters get a positive unfiltered case from the candidate. Cost would be far less. And if someone wants to smear the other guy, they can raise the cash themselves. But there’s no line item here for enriching hacks, hired guns and hangers-on, and that’s what the “Citizens’ Election Program” is really all about
… or we just accept that politics is politics and no program will ever eliminate influence and corruption. The best remedy is rigorous prosecution.
“Without Griebel, that race would have been a blowout.”
Yeah it would have been a blowout for Fedele.
No agressive nutmeg, Foley would have won by more.
Where’s ACR aka Doug Hageman to weigh in on this? He’s been awfully quiet lately as has that nit wit “Sue.” All we ever heard out of her stupid mouth was “Kool-aid, Kool-aid, Kool-aid, Kool-aid, Justin err Bill, Justin err Bill, Justin err Bill, Kool-aid, Kool-aid, Kool-aid, Kool-aid.” WOW is she dumb!
Leave a Comment