The Hartford police are investigating a case involving Angel Morales, who lost in a hotly contested Democratic primary against state Rep. Kelvin Roldan in the Fourth District.

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-hartford-morales-0903-20100902,0,187372.story

President Obama is coming to the state and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal says he "look[s] forward to welcoming the President of the United States to Connecticut.''

But he's not the only one who has the President's Sept. 16 fundraising visit circled on the calendar.

"Save the date folks!'' says the email sent out by the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots just a few hours the date for Obama's visit was set.

"On September 16th, President Obama is coming to Connecticut to campaign for Blumy, and to raise money for the democratic party, and we are going to give him a TEA PARTY WELCOME!  He will be in Stamford AND Greenwich in two separate events that day, so stay tuned for details.  We plan on having tea party protests at BOTH events.  As soon as we know exactly when and where, we'll let you know!"

With a huge budget deficit looming on the horizon, the candidates for governor are debating over whether the state needs to raise any taxes to close the projected deficit of more than $3 billion in the next fiscal year.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley is ruling out an increase in the sales tax or any other taxes - saying that the budget gap can be closed through spending cuts alone.

Democrat Dannel Malloy, his spokesman says, would consider tax increases only as a last resort - after first creating jobs, cutting state spending, and streamlining state government.

"The notion that you can get out of this without considering revenue - nobody believes that,'' said Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy's chief strategist. "Dan believes in progressive taxation. It's a basic difference between the two.''

Malloy has not made any specific proposals about raising taxes, other than to say that various options would need to be considered.

The Democratic-controlled legislature's finance committee, however, is expected to consider whether the sales tax and other taxes need to be raised next year to close the gap. But House Speaker Christopher Donovan said Friday that the finance committee analyzes the tax structure every year in an effort to strike the right balance regarding taxation. He said it is too early to make any predictions about potential tax increases in the 2012 fiscal year.

"When we have state Democrats and federal Democrats working together, we balance our budget. We'll do it again,'' Donovan said. "We did it for fiscal years 9, 10, and 11.''

Republican Sam Caligiuri says his newly-released internal poll shows him just one point behind Democratic incumbent Chris Murphy, a signal that national trends may be playing out in Connecticut.

The survey, conducted by Adam Geller of National Research, shows Murphy with 40 percent of the 5th District vote and Caligiuri with 39 percent. The Caligiuri campaign's email touting the results did not include the poll's margin of error.

Most troubling for Murphy, 45 percent of those polled said they think "it's time for a new person" in the seat.

The poll of 400 likely voters in the 5th District was conducted Aug. 30 and 31.

The race for Congress in lower Fairfield County is getting increasing national attention.

The National Journal now calls it one of the five bellwether races to watch. The reason is that U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of Greenwich is a first-term Democrat who won a narrowly close race in a district that has been led by the Republicans for decades.

Before Himes upset U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays in 2008, Shays held the seat for 21 years. Before Shays won a special election in the hot summer of 1987, the seat had been held for 17 years by U.S. Rep. Stewart McKinney. Before McKinney, the district was led by a young Greenwich politician named Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.

Himes benefitted from a huge outpouring of support from Bridgeport Democrats for candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 race as Obama soundly defeated Republican John McCain in numerous towns in lower Fairfield County. Obama is not on the ballot this year as Himes is facing Republican state senator Dan Debicella of Shelton.

Shays had two close races against a solid candidate, Diane Farrell of Westport, in 2004 and 2006 before he was finally toppled by Himes in 2008.

Besides being on the National Journal's radar screen, the race was also recently mentioned on the CNN Top 100 list of the most vulnerable races in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The state's cigarette tax is bringing in more money than expected - even though retailers are selling fewer cigarettes.

Analysts had predicted that the hike to $3 per pack would cause some smokers to quit and prompt others to find alternate ways of purchasing cigarettes, such as over the Internet.

The Hartford Courant's Jesse Leavenworth has the details at http://www.courant.com/health/hc-ct-cigarette-tax-0906-20100905,0,4352850.story

Our colleague, Rick Green, weighs in on one of the biggest questions in politics this fall: can the Democrats hold the U.S. House of Representatives?

Rep. John B. Larson, the fourth-highest-ranking member of the House Democratic caucus, says they can. But numerous political prognosticators say that the national winds are trending toward the Republicans in a year when President Barack Obama is not on the ballot.

Larson is running this year in the Democratic-dominated First Congressional District against Republican Ann Brickley and Green Party candidate Kenneth Krayeske.

http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/09/heavy-lifting-for-larson-gener.html

Denocratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy shot back at Republican opponent Sam Caligiuri's new internal poll, which shows the GOP challenger essentially tied with the two-term incumbent.

"Surveying a miniscule sample of 400 voters (for comparison, the Quinnipiac Poll surveys 1,000 voters), asking biased questions, and hiding methodology, response rate, and the party affiliation of the sample, Caligiuri released phony numbers today as a way to build support for a campaign to which very few people are paying attention,'' states a press release put out by the Murphy campaign.

The campaign painted Caligiuri as a candidate struggling to gain traction and unable to win the attention -- and the dollars -- of the national Republican party.

"Caligiuri has a broke campaign treasury, no statewide or national buzz, and a fractured Republican party that only gave him 39% of the primary vote,'' Kenny Curran, Murphy's campaign manager said in the press release.

"Frankly, the only way for him to generate any attention to this race is to manufacture phony results with a slanted poll.  Our campaign's internal polling has always shown us with a solid double digit lead, so we know this slapdash poll doesn't add up.  We got several calls from furious constituents last week after they received this poll, so we knew there was one in the field trying to create a manufactured head-to-head number.  Now we know it was Caligiuri.''

UPDATE: Tiffany Romero Grossman, spokeswoman for the Caligiuri camp, had this to say about Curran's comment:

"Murphy is in denial that his candidacy is in trouble, just as he is in denial when he says that Connecticut's economy is 'good', that he has been an independent voice in Congress when he votes with Pelosi 98% of the time, and that his 'yes' votes to the failed stimulus package and the Wall Street bailouts have left us better off now than we were two years ago.  Today's poll results echo the trends that national polling firms are consistently reporting- voters are ready to give the Democratic majority in Congress the boot.  In the Fifth District, voters are rejecting the failed Pelosi agenda - and therefore abandoning Chris Murphy - and flocking to Sam's candidacy because he is offering them the better way to create jobs and grow our economy.''

A little more information about the poll: It was done by Adam Geller of National Research. Geller has done work for a number of prominent GOP pols, including N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. In Connecticut, he's done work for former U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson and has recently completed a poll for Dan Debicella, a Republican congressional candidate in the 4th District.

Geller has also been accused by Democrats of push polling, according to this story in Tucson Weekly.

The two main candidates for governor - Democrat Dannel Malloy and Republican Tom Foley - were locked in their own debate Tuesday over how many debates there should be over the next two months.

Malloy has agreed to 19 debates and forums from every organization that has asked in the fall campaign. Foley, though, has agreed to four debates on the local Connecticut affiliates of the major television networks - CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox.

"He seems to have a pretty broad definition of a debate,'' Foley said, adding that the forums around the state by various interest groups should be in a separate category. "We don't consider those to be debates.''

"If you can't get your point across in three or four debates, you might have to change your message,'' Foley said in an interview.

The clash Tuesday began with a complaint by Malloy that Foley was avoiding the one-on-one matches.

"Apparently, he wants to limit the number of debates to four,'' Malloy said. "I just don't understand that. I've agreed to do every debate that's been put on the table for one simple reason: I have a fundamental belief that voters should hear as much as possible from both candidates about our ideas, our experience, and our vision. What better way to do that than standing right next to one another and answering the same questions?''

Foley campaign officials said they were stunned by Malloy's statement Tuesday, saying they never heard back from him about arranging the details of any of the debates. Foley's campaign manager, Justin Clark, said he hopes the candidates can talk about the issues "rather than a phony debate about debates'' that is now occurring.

"We know that career politicians like to talk and like an audience, but four televised debates should be plenty of time for Dannel Malloy to explain why Stamford lost 13,000 jobs from 2000-2009, why he raised Stamford's taxes every year he was in office, why Stamford's debt rose over 200 percent to more than $340 million while he was mayor, and why only 37 percent of Stamford's public school students perform at grade level,'' Clark said in an e-mail.

Roy Occhiogrosso, the chief strategist for Malloy, said that it is Foley who is going to need more time to debate.

"Tom Foley will need a lot more than four debates to explain how he bought a company, destroyed it, drove it into bankruptcy and ruined people's lives,'' Occhiogrosso said, referring to Foley's former ownership of The Bibb Company in Georgia. Foley has said that the Bibb mill did not close until after he had relinquished control of the company, but the problems at the Bibb became a major issue in the Republican primary in July and August.

"Dan Malloy would love to spend a lot more than four debates talking about the city of Stamford,'' Occhiogrosso said.

Regardless of whether Foley attends, Malloy intends to be at all 19 debates and forums, Occhiogrosso said. 

The largest audiences for the head-to-head battles will be the four televised debates. The first will be on Tuesday, October 5 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the 907-seat Belding Theatre at the Bushnell Center For The Performing Arts in Hartford. It will be televised live on Fox Connecticut in a contest that is co-sponsored by The Hartford Courant. Carl Cameron, who is known nationally as the chief political correspondent for the Fox News Channel, will serve as the moderator.

Former University of Connecticut athletic director Lew Perkins has retired as athletic director at the University of Kansas - earlier than he expected.

Perkins was a well known figure at the state Capitol when UConn was trying to upgrade its football program to Division 1-A and when it was trying to build Rentschler Field in East Hartford. The state Senate had rejected a move to build a football stadium on the campus in Storrs, but Perkins and others continued to push for a stadium through the years.

Then-Gov. John G. Rowland packaged the UConn stadium into a single vote with the Adriaen's Landing complex in Hartford because some of Rowland's advisors believed that the UConn stadium could not win in a stand-alone vote in the legislature - in the same way that it had failed in the original vote in the Senate for the campus stadium. When the Adriaen's Landing complex was approved, so was the stadium.

Two well-known journalists from the Fox News Channel will serve as the moderators of two debates next month at The Bushnell theatre in Hartford.

Anchor Bret Baier will be the moderator for the U.S. Senate debate between Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon on Monday, October 4. The debate will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on Fox Connecticut from the 907-seat Belding Theater at The Bushnell Center For the Performing Arts on Capitol Avenue. Baier is the network's former Chief White House correspondent who took over the nightly anchoring duties from Brit Hume.

Baier made headlines by interrupting President Barack Obama repeatedly during an interview, prompting Obama to say that he wasn't being allowed to answer the questions.

Coming soon to a cable channel near you: 3rd District Republican congressional candidate Jerry Labriola's new ad.

The 30-second spot uses the metaphor of a maze to tap into fears, documented by recent polls, that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the nation and the pace of the economic recovery.

 "Have you ever felt you were just stuck and can't seem to make any progress?" states the ad, while images of people walking toward walls flash on the screen. "Around every turn there's a dead end."

The maze morphs into Democratic incumbent Rosa DeLauro's head (she's wearing her hipster glasses, by the way."

The spot ends with  Labriola using a chain saw to cut a doorway through a wall, and promising "no more mazes, no more obtsacles, no more dead ends" He pledges to "cut our way out of this mess."

Yesterday U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy's campaign manager, Kenny Curran, dismissed Republican Sam Caligiuri as someone who hasn't been able to gain any traction with party big wigs in DC.

Not true, says Greg Blair, deputy press secretary of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Absolutely he has buzz,'' Blair said. "Murphy's brand is extremely damaged because of his votes on health care and wall street bailouts...and Caligiuri is proving himself to be very competitive here. Murphy's empty attacks are only proving that he's feeling the heat.''

Blair said the NRCC is heartened by trends in both CT-5 and CT-4. "Connecticut is taking a turn here,'' he said. "These races are moving up on the radar bsed on the strength of our candidates and how much Murphy and Himes are damaged.''

Does that mean the NRCC is ready to start writing checks on Caligiuri and Himes' opponent Dan Debicella's behalf? Blair wouldn't comment.

Blair also questioned the Murphy campaign's rejection of Caligiuri's internal polling, which shows the race essentially even.

"If he's got a poll that shows Caligiuri's is wrong, where is it?'' Blair asked.

The state Democratic party tracker looks mighty uncomfortable as he monitors Republican Linda McMahon's coffee talk at a local lunch spot.

(Speaking of trackers, Neil Vigdor of Hearst Newspapers featured a great shot of McMahon's tracker shadowing Richard Blumenthal riding a tractor in Bridgewater over the weekend. Shades of Mike Dukakis in the tank?)

The state party has put together a parody of sorts of Linda McMahon's recent ad featuring her BFF, Judy Moorberg.

Using Moorberg's own words, the video paints a decidedly different picture than McMahon's ad does.

About 85 restaurants, farms and other establishments will participate in the state's first-ever "Farm-to-Chef Harvest Celebration Week" Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, offering special home-grown food menus to celebrate the year's bounty and help observe the state's 375th anniversary, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Wednesday.

Chefs from participating restaurants will cook with Connecticut-grown ingredients at a kick-off event Sept. 26 at the Coventry Farmers' Market - from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Nathan Hale Homestead - and will provide free samples to the public.

With less than two months until Election Day, the two candidates for governor criticized each other Wednesday over taxes and spending.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley said that Democrat Dannel Malloy raised taxes when he served as Stamford's mayor. Malloy said that he trimmed the government in a "responsible fashion'' in Stamford, adding that Foley's numbers don't add up regarding the state's projected budget deficit. 

Foley pledged to cut state spending, citing a new report that was released Wednesday by the conservative-leaning Yankee Institute for Public Policy on state government. Foley says he will decline the $150,000 salary as governor as a cost-cutting move that also involves cutting 10 percent of the governor's staff.

The Yankee report notes that all 36 state senators hold a leadership title that entitles them to increased pay. For example, there are only 12 Republican senators, but they all have a title - including chief deputy minority leader, deputy minority leader, assistant minority leader and minority whip.

The three highest-ranking senators, however, voluntarily took 10 percent pay cuts as part of the legislature's budget-cutting efforts. Another, Sen. L. Scott Frantz of Greenwich, is accepting no salary or expenses from the state.

Overall, the increased pay for the leadership titles in the Senate and the state House of Representatives totals about $700,000 annually. Foley says he will decline the $150,000 salary as governor and said he would work "to end this costly insider custom'' in the General Assembly that would require legislative approval.
 
"The state of Connecticut is facing a budget deficit of nearly $3.5 billion, yet none of the insiders in Hartford, who saw this train wreck coming, have taken any serious step to reducing government spending,'' Foley said in a statement. "Unlike my opponent, I believe Connecticut residents are taxed enough and we need to focus all our efforts on reducing wasteful spending like that exposed by the Yankee Institute. But it won't happen if the next governor is part of the insider crowd that always manages to pay itself first.''

"As mayor of Stamford, Dan Malloy asked that the city raise his salary at the same time he was proposing tax increases and he is relying on $6 million of taxpayer money to fund his campaign,'' Foley said. "Dan favors more taxes and more wasteful government spending. The voters want the tax, borrow, and spend days to end in Connecticut. We need to get our fiscal house in order and get headed in a healthier direction."

In the same fashion, Malloy criticized Foley earlier in the day about the projected state budget deficit, saying Foley's numbers don't add up.

"I know something about balancing budgets, holding the line on taxes, and wringing savings out of government by shrinking it in a responsible fashion,'' Malloy said in a statement. "That's what I did for 14 years as mayor of Stamford.  It wasn't always easy, but our city government and our taxpayers knew that, no matter what, they'd get a transparent, open dialogue about the City's finances.  That's something Connecticut desperately needs from its next Governor - not more empty promises and budget tricks.''

An addendum to today's story on Blumenthal and the media: Why has Blumenthal gone after this and not this?

That's a question conservative blogger and columnist Don Pesci has been asking for a while now. Could it be because craigslist is an "easy target?'' Pesci asks.

"If, for example, you successfully harass the owner of craigslist to surrender his First Amendment rights to publish legal ads on his site, can you, in good conscience, withhold your disapproval from Connecticut newspapers and other media outlets that run similar ads?'' Pesci writes. "Might not one of your political opponents charge that you have extended the long arm of your displeasure all the way to California, conspicuously reaching outside your own state, where charges that you are playing fast and loose with the First Amendment might sting and harm your chances to realize your life's ambition - to become, after January, Connecticut's junior U.S. senator? What happens in California may, one hopes, stay in California."

I put the question to Blumenthal recently and here's his response:

"Craigslist is unmatched in its scope and scale,'' Blumenthal said. "It reaches more people, it's effects in its ads for prostitution are more far reaching and some of it has bveen more explicit...it reaches more people and what weve said all along is, just as we did with MySpace and Facebook, we hope to make it a model of what can be done."

And, he added, just because Craigslist is in the crosshairs now that doesn't mean his office is "surrendering in any way other potential sites as an objective for action.''

But why not make the Advocate newspapers a model? (Disclosure: the chain is owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Courant and this blog.) Is there a double-standard at play? Blumenthal says no.

"I'm leading a coalition of attorneys general on craigslist,'' Blumenthal said. "We're combining our resources as 17 attorneys general and we had more involved before...we're raising issues that I think will ultimately impact local ads for prostiution and I hope that craigslist does the right thing and provides a model.''

As many as 8,000 police officers are expected at a memorial service Friday in Hartford for Trooper Kenneth Hall, who was killed recently in a traffic accident in Enfield.

The State Capitol police issued the estimate Thursday in an e-mail to Capitol employees and others regarding the preparations for the memorial service. Officers from around the country and beyond - as far away as California and Canada - are expected at the State Armory, which is adjacent to the state Capitol complex.

Capitol employees are being told they should not expect to be able to leave the parking garage at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. due to the heavy traffic from the memorial service. The service is scheduled to start at 11 a.m.

Various streets will be shut down for four hours around the armory, according to the Capitol police. Those include Broad Street between Capitol Avenue and the Interstate 84 east on-ramp, which is across the street from The Hartford Courant headquarters and adjacent to the armory. In addition, Capitol Avenue will be closed between Broad Street and the Interstate 84 west on-ramp, which is about halfway between the Capitol and the Legislative Office Building.

On Thursday morning, state troopers gathered outside the armory for briefings as a landscaping crew cleaned up the small park directly across the street from the armory.

Many officials, including Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the entire membership of the state legislature's public safety committee, are expected to attend the service.

Hartford city council member Matthew Ritter has been declared the winner of the Democratic primary for the state legislative seat that was held for 16 years by Rep. Kenneth Green.

A Superior Court judge made the ruling Wednesday after Green filed a lawsuit that charged that various mistakes were made in the primary election. Green had won on election night, but then a recount showed that Ritter had pulled ahead by two votes.

Ritter must still win the seat in the general election in November against a Republican and an independent.

He is striving to represent Hartford's West End and Bloomfield in a seat that was previously held by his father, former House Speaker Thomas Ritter. Prior to that, the seat was held by Ritter's grandfather, George Ritter.