Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green weighs in on the long-awaited debate between Greenwich cable TV entrepreneur Ned Lamont and former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy.

http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/08/lamont-v-malloy-debate.html

Martha Dean, the endorsed Republican candidate for Attorney General, escalated her war of words with primary opponent Ross Garber Wednesday, threatening - without explicitly promising - to sue Garber for defamation over what she says are factual errors in his campaign mailings.

Garber touched off the dispute last week with a  glossy, mass-mailing to registered Republicans. In it, he delivered a photo mélange of drugs and drug paraphernalia under the headline: "Martha Dean wants to decriminalize heroin and cocaine use."

Dean flatly denies the assertion and denies ever specifically mentioning heroin and cocaine in a political discussion. She says she has called decriminalization of drug offenses an issue worthy of discussion, particularly as courts and prisons are overwhelmed by drug offenders and law enforcement reallocates limited resources to anti-terror efforts.

Garber had no immediate response.

Dean started talking about unspecified "legal action" against Garber earlier in the week.

The state Senate is scheduled to convene in special session Thursday afternoon to override Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell's veto of a campaign finance reform fix.

Rell and the Democrats who control the legislature have been locked in a battle over how much public money should be spent in this fall's election.

The fix is needed because a federal judge ruled that portions of the state's landmark campaign finance reform law is unconstitutional.

Although the House of Representatives and the Senate traditionally conduct special sessions on the same day, they will be split Thursday. The House is not expected to convene until after the August 10 primary.

The continuing clash between Republican gubernatorial candidates Tom Foley and Mike Fedele over negative TV ads escalated Wednesday during a three-way debate between them and their fellow Republican gubernatorial contender in next Tuesday's GOP primary, R. Nelson "Oz" Griebel.

During the televised hour-long debate, co-sponsored by Connecticut Public Broadcasting and WFSB-TV, Channel 3, Foley tangled with Fedele, who is the state's lieutenant governor, over Fedele's use of money provided to his campaign from the state's public financing system, commonly called the clean elections program.

Fedele has recently been airing ads criticizing Foley's ownership and management of the Bibb Co. in Georgia, a textile manufacturer that the Greenwich multimillionaire bought through a junk-bond-financed leveraged buyout in 1985. In 1996, Foley relinquished executive control and most of his 95 percent stake in Bibb during a bankruptcy restructuring, and the company later closed.

Fedele blames Foley for the closing and the loss of thousands of jobs. Foley says although he retained a 7 percent stock interest after 1996, he had no management control of the company and its decisions when the biggest Bibb plant closed for good in Georgia in 1998.

Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green discusses the hotly contested race between Attorneys Ross Garber and Martha Dean in the Republican primary for attorney general.

Dean is threatening legal action if Garber does not retract statements that he made in a direct-mail piece that was sent to Republican voters.

http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/08/mad-martha-to-ross-garber-publ.html

The Norwich Bulletin has endorsed Gerry Garcia, a Yale University graduate, in the Democratic primary for Secretary of the State.

The Hartford Courant had previously endorsed his opponent, House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, a long-serving legislator from Mansfield.

The Bulletin's editorial page editor, Ray Hackett, has been involved in a recent clash with Merrill regarding the editorial endorsement.

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/Opinion/x109289354/Our-view-Garcia-would-promote-equality-for-all

With only days remaining before Tuesday's primaries, Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Tom Foley still remain in the lead in races that are getting steadily closer.

Lamont is leading former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy by 5 percentage points among likely Democratic voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll. Foley is up by 15 points over Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele and 28 points over longtime business executive Oz Griebel of Simsbury.

"Lamont still has the edge, but with 14 percent of the votes undecided and 43 percent who still could change their mind, it is close enough that Malloy could pull it off,'' said Douglas Schwartz, the poll's director.

Malloy is deploying a come-from-behind strategy as he pulls closer to the front-running Lamont, who has led in the polls for about six months. The two combatants have been broadcasting a series of negative campaign commercials since Malloy started the slugfest on Friday, July 23.

Lamont did not initially respond on television to Malloy's sharp charges, and he has admitted that lack of action - for nearly a week - cost him in the polls. Some of Lamont's supporters believed that the latest Quinnipiac Poll would show essentially a dead heat as the race moved toward its finale. Lamont, however, began responding on television starting last Thursday in an effort to combat Malloy's surge, and he has continued the response with a steady stream of commercials.

Malloy has repeatedly shown ads that charge that Lamont reduced the workforce in his cable television company by 70 percent while taking a salary of more than $500,000. But Lamont counters that the company sold off a portion of the business, and those workers largely gained new employment with the cable outfit that purchased the business.

U.S. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman raised the same charges about Lamont's business during the 2006 campaign, and Lamont's then-campaign chairman, former Stamford state Senator George Jepsen - the former chairman of the state Democratic Party - said it was a distortion of Lamont's business career that was false.

"Despite a two-week barrage of Dan Malloy's false, negative ads and his repetition of four-year-old lies about Ned and his company, Connecticut voters still know that Ned Lamont has the best experience to create jobs and help their families,'' Justine Sessions, a spokeswoman for Lamont, said in a statement.

She added, "While Dan's campaign grows more desperate and erratic every day, we're sticking to our strategy and talking to the people of Connecticut about the issue that they care most about: jobs. We've got a robust field operation that will turn out our voters on election day, and with just five days to go, the only poll that matters to us is next Tuesday.''

Malloy's campaign manager, Dan Kelly, said, "This race is tightening because as people really begin making up their minds, they're moving to Dan. They know he turned around a city, and they think he can turn around a state. They know Dan Malloy has the right kind of experience to be governor.''

He added that Lamont "is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars a day into this race - about $8 million so far - and people are beginning to reject it.''

Malloy is financing his campaign with public funds under the state's landmark campaign law, and he has received $2.5 million for the primary.

The Lamont campaign says that Malloy has been distorting Lamont's jobs record at the same time that he has been distorting his own jobs record, too. Malloy has repeatedly said that he helped create 5,000 jobs in Stamford, but state labor statistics show that the city has lost more than 13,000 jobs since reaching the peak employment level in 2000. The unemployment rate increased by more than 58 percent in Stamford during Malloy's 14 years as mayor.

Some progressive Democrats say Malloy has been misrepresenting his jobs record for years - dating back to complaints during the 2006 campaign by New Haven Mayor John DeStefano about Malloy's statements about creating 5,000 jobs.

Lamont has also questioned Malloy's ethics, noting that the then-Stamford mayor underwent a criminal investigation for 17 months by 8 investigators regarding city contractors who worked on his home in the affluent Shippan section of Stamford. Malloy, however, was never charged in the case, which concluded in 2005. He received a letter from the chief state's attorney that there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on his part. Lamont, though, says that he would never let state contractors work on his house if he becomes governor - and that it is an issue of ethics, not legality.

The state attorney general said Thursday that he has found "inappropriate" political use of taxpayer-funded resources in the office of Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz -- and has referred the matter to the state's top prosecutor, Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, to determine if criminal laws were broken.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal made those findings in an investigative report issued Thursday -- saying also that it was "not proper" for his fellow Democrat, Bysiewicz, to include information on the "religion, race and ethnicity" of thousands of citizens in a controversial, taxpayer-funded "constituent database" assembled and maintained by her office.

Bysiewicz's inclusion in the database of information not essential to the official operation of her office "gives the reasonable perception that the state database was developed as a useful tool for political campaign purposes," Blumenthal said.

Former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy has a history of coming from behind in election campaigns.

He did it in 1995 in the race for mayor when he defeated a Republican incumbent.

He did it in 2006 when he lost in the Democratic gubernatorial primary against New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.

And he's trying to do it this year in a close race for governor against Greenwich cable TV entrepreneur Ned Lamont.

A profile on Malloy is at http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-primary-gov-dan-malloy-0805-20100804,0,3756172.story

State senators paused Thursday afternoon to remember the nine victims who were killed this week in a tragedy at a Manchester liquor wholesaler.

The Senate convened in a special session to override a campaign finance reform bill that had been vetoed by Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell. But before discussing the veto override shortly after 3 p.m., the senators talked about those who had been killed.

Sen. Mary Ann Handley, a Democrat who represents Manchester and nearby towns, requested a moment of silence for "a truly dreadful event in which nine people went to work and are now dead.''

"Nobody goes to work on an August morning thinking what happened is going to happen,'' Handley said on the Senate floor. "I ask, Mr. President, that we remember those who are dead, those who are wounded, their families and friends.''

Sen. Gary LeBeau, a longtime resident of East Hartford who also represents South Windsor and other communities, noted that several of those who died lived in his district. He attended the memorial service Wednesday night at St. Margaret Mary's Church in South Windsor.

Some of the victims were "terrific, wonderful people who gave to the community who volunteered as soccer coaches, Little League coaches ... always giving.''

"There was true heroism going on there. People risked their lives to save others, and they died,'' LeBeau said on the Senate floor. "It wrenches your heart out of your chest. Some of these people had young kids, and they've lost their dads.''

"I don't think there is a place that I know of that has better relations of business and their employees than Hartford Distributors,'' LeBeau said of the employees and the owners, the Hollander family. "They've contributed to my campaigns. They're wonderful people. They've contributed to virtually every charity in the Hartford area.''

Quinnipiac plans to release the results of its latest survey Monday morning, just 24 hours or so before the polls open on Tuesday. Will the results skew the outcome?

In the waning days before the Republican primary, the remarkably disciplined McMahon campaign veered off message for a brief moment.

For weeks now, McMahon has essentially ignored GOP primary opponents Rob Simmons and Peter Schiff and focused with laser-like intensity on Democrat Richard Blumenthal.

But this morning, McMahon issued a press release slamming Simmons. "Rob Simmons is a desperate candidate,'' states the release. "And the telltale signs of desperation - erratic behavior, bad judgment, acrimony, reckless and misleading exaggerations - are on full display in the final days of the Connecticut Republican primary for U.S. Senate."

UPDATE: Ed Patru's press release isn't the only jab McMahon's people are throwing at Simmons. The campaign sent out a mailer a few days ago hitting Simmons on cap-and-trade and card-check.

"Rob Simmons' liberal policies could cost Connecticut,'' the flyer states. (Incidentially, Simmons repudiated his earlier support of both measures about six months ago and the McMahon campaign has already been smacked by the non-partisan FactCheck.org for twisting Simmons' positions.)   

But heading into Tuesday's primary, McMahon's criticisms raises a larger question: What does she hope to gain by hitting Simmons? She leads him in the polls but if she emerges as the nominee, she'll have to win over his supporters and unite the party.

For his part, Simmons has indicated he will play the role of good Republican soldier, telling WNPR's John Dankosky earlier this week that he will support the Republican nominee.

A brash newcomer is challenging a veteran political hand in the Democratic primary for Secretary of the State. Not surprisingly, both candidates have made experience a defining issue in the contest.

Convention-nominated candidate Denise Merrill says she has what it takes to make the office work for voters and business - 17 years in the state House of Representatives, where she currently serves as Majority Leader.

But Gerry Garcia, a Yale-educated financial advisor and consultant challenging Hartford as much as he is Merrill, says she and the rest of the legislative leadership have left the state in a financial rut. Fresh thinking, he says, is needed to put a dated and out-of-touch office in line with the sophisticated elections and business registration systems operating elsewhere.

In Connecticut, the Secretary of the State is the state's chief elections officer and is responsible for registering the state's 322,000 or so businesses.

Both candidates have similar plans to improve the two aspects of the office's operations. In general, they would make it easier for time-starved citizens to vote, work to draw non-voters into the political process and serve as an information resource to business already  required by law to register with the office.

But as the campaign wind's down to the Aug. 10 primary, the two have are presenting distinct personas.

Merrill is portraying herself as a solid, political veteran with a  proven record and the knowledge of government needed to get results. 

"Experience matters," Merrill said in a recent interview. "I have been working on these electoral issues for many years. I have been a proponent of civic education and that has been my life's work. That's why I want to do this job."

Garcia, increasingly combative as the campaign winds down, contends Merrill is part of an entrenched political leadership in Hartford that has left the state with a $3.5 billion budget deficit and an antiquated elections system.

U.S. Senate Republicans have derailed President Obama's nomination of Hartford district judge Robert N. Chatigny to the federal appeals court, likely postponing the controversial appointment to next year when partisan opposition is expected to grow.

The Senate's minority Republicans invoked a procedural rule which has the effect of removing Chatigny's nomination from the Senate - where it had not reached a final vote - and returning it to the White House.

Observers said Obama is likely to renominate Chatigny after the Senate's summer recess. But they said the Judiciary committee is unlikely to act upon the nomination, for what would be a second time,  until after what is expected to be an increasingly Republican Senate is convened following the November election.

Obama nominated Chatigny to the influential U.S. 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeals on the recommendation of a selection committee chosen by Connecticut Senators Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, and independent Joseph Lieberman.

The nomination is opposed by Judiciary committee Republicans who say Chatigny exceeded his judicial authority when he intervened in the case of notorious, serial killer Michael B. Ross and postponed Ross's execution.

"It's disappointing that Republican objections caused Judge Chatigny's nomination to be sent back to the White House.  I continue to believe that he would be an outstanding addition to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and I urge President Obama to re-nominate Judge Chatigny for this vacancy."

A spokesman for Lieberman said: "Senator Lieberman supported  Judge Chatigny's nomination, and it is his hope that his nomination is eventually considered this year by the entire Senate."

Democratic legislative candidate Matt Ritter of Hartford sent out a campaign e-mail on April 30 touting a community group's endorsement of him in his Aug. 10 primary contest with incumbent state Rep. Ken Green, D-Hartford -- but it turns out that the group is a for-profit corporation that Ritter is paying $4,000 to help him get elected.

The glowing announcement by Ritter, a Hartford councilman, left out both the financial connection and the fact that the group is a for-profit corporation, for which incorporation papers were only filed in March.

The campaign e-mail included a color picture of Ritter, who is white, with a number of African American and Latino women involved in the group, and their children. Many residents of the 1st House District, which includes parts of Hartford and Bloomfield, are members of racial or ethnic minorities.

"Matt is pleased to announce that he has received a major endorsement: The Voices of Women of Color (VOWC) has unanimously voted as an organization to support Matt for State Representative," went Ritter's announcement. "The Voices of Women of Color is a diverse group of over 35 women dedicated to improving the lives of Hartford residents through outreach, social programming and leadership training. Matt is honored and excited to have their support. Janice Flemming, President of VOWC, said the organization decided to endorse Matt because 'he works, he listens and he responds.' "

However, the announcement didn't mention that on April 29 -- the day before the endorsement was announced -- Ritter's election committee treasurer signed a contract starting May 1 with the Voices of Women of Color to do campaign work such as distributing literature, phone-calling, door-knocking and organizing community events. The contract ran to June 30, paying $2,000, a recent campaign finance report shows. Another $2,000 is to be paid for July and August, Flemming and Ritter said when contacted during the week by The Courant.

In a primary that seems to grow more bitter by the day, accusations between Democrats Dannel Malloy and Ned Lamont continue to be thrown in advance of Tuesday's primary.

Lamont's campaign has run commercials related directly to the renovations that were made to Malloy's Shippan home and involved contractors who held city contracts. Neither the contractors, nor Malloy, were ever charged in the case. In addition, then-Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano issued an unusual letter that said there was "no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing'' in the 17-month investigation after more than 100 witnesses were interviewed.

Lamont's campaign, though, released a copy of a six-page contract from 2001 between the city of Stamford and a construction management company that the campaign said was a no-bid contract. The contract was signed by Malloy as the mayor and included the signature of a witness who attested that he signed it in her presence.

"Dan's being dishonest, and he knows it,'' said Joe Abbey, Lamont's campaign manager. "Instead of purposely misleading the voters, he should explain why he signed no-bid contracts for companies that gave him campaign cash or worked on his home."

But Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy's chief strategist, said Malloy was never involved in a no-bid contract.

"Dan Malloy never had anything to do with a no-bid contract. Period,'' Occhiogrosso told Capitol Watch. "The mayor had absolutely nothing to do with it.''

When told that Malloy's signature was on the contract, Occhiogrosso said his signature could have been on it, pro forma, as the mayor.

"The selection process is something he had absolutely nothing to do with,'' Occhiogrosso said, adding that the selection is not the role of the mayor. "I understand why they're feeling desperate. Their lead has slipped away. This is about as close as it could be. They're still hustling this fairy tale a few days before the election.''

While there are numerous primaries scheduled for Tuesday, some party insiders and Capitol Watchers wonder whether it's the best day for an election.

Many families are away on vacation or at the beach or simply not paying attention under the hot August sun.

"The biggest problem Tuesday is getting people out to vote,'' said former state Sen. Biagio "Billy'' Ciotto, who is now 80 years old. "The legislature should think seriously about changing the date. If you go out in the street, 6 out of 10 wouldn't know what you're talking about.''

Attorney Toni Fatone, who has been making telephone calls on behalf of former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, says some registered Democrats that she encounters don't even realize there is a primary on Tuesday.

"It's either got to be in June or it's got to be in September,'' said Fatone, who was well known at the state Capitol for years as the chief advocate for the for-profit nursing homes.

Sometimes when a public law enforcement case seems closed, it really isn't -- and Democratic state Sen. Thomas Gaffey of Meriden is the latest proof of that, Sunday's Government Watch column says.

Fifteen months ago, the State Elections Enforcement Commission fined Gaffey $6,000 under a settlement agreement to resolve its complaint against him for non-criminal violations of state election law -- including double-billing his political action committee and the state for travel to legislative conferences around the country.

The turnout will be the key in Tuesday's Democratic primary for governor between Ned Lamont of Greenwich and Dannel Malloy of Stamford.

Details are at http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-get-out-the-vote-0808-20100808,0,6118885.story

CT-N, the state's public affairs network, will be broadcasting live primary coverage on Tuesday night in conjunction with several other media organizations.

The live coverage starts at 7 p.m. with host Diane Smith and will be simulcast on www.courant.com, www.CTnow.com, and www.ct-n.com.

"With so many contested races, this year's primary will have a profound impact on Connecticut state government,'' said Paul Giguere, the president and CEO of CT-N.

CT-N will receive field reports by reporters from The Hartford Courant, Fox Connecticut, and the Connecticut Mirror, a non-profit online site that covers state politics and government.