Behind in the polls and behind in fundraising, former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy challenged Greenwich cable TV entrepreneur Ned Lamont to 17 debates Wednesday as they launch into the primary season.
Malloy, who faces Lamont on August 10 in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, wants "a different kind of campaign'' with debates in all 17 cities and towns that have a daily newspaper.
Malloy wants to have many debates, saying there was only one debate in his unsuccessful 2006 campaign for governor in the Democratic primary - a prime-time, televised debate at the Garde Arts Center in New London.
"One,'' Malloy said when asked by a reporter Wednesday how many debates he had in 2006 with New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. "That was the New London one. There were some joint appearances, but not many. I don't think there were joint appearances after the convention.''
But the archives of The Hartford Courant show that there were at least a dozen debates in 2006 on television, radio, and in front of live audiences around the state. The contests included taped debates that aired on "Beyond The Headlines'' on Channel 61 and WFSB-TV, Channel 3. The debate at the Garde theatre was held on July 18 - two months after Malloy's convention victory.
Other debates were not televised live, including the first post-convention debate on June 8, 2006 at Rockville High School in Vernon against DeStefano, who later won the primary. Malloy was happy to see the number of newspaper and television reporters at that debate.
"We have more press at this debate than we had at any of the eight or nine debates in the three weeks, four weeks leading up to the convention,'' Malloy said that day in June 2006 in Rockville.
Malloy won the Democratic nomination for the second time at the state party's convention Saturday, but he has remained behind Lamont in the past three Quinnipiac University polls over the past several months. Another poll is scheduled to be released Thursday morning.
In the proposed debates, Malloy said he and Lamont can "test one another's intellects, test one another's conceptions of governance, test one another's experience, and the applicability of that experience to a state in crisis."
Malloy unveiled the idea to the Capitol press corps on Wednesday morning without having asked Lamont about it. He said he would be calling Lamont in about two hours to ask him personally.
The Lamont campaign said that U.S. John McCain offered the same proposal during the 2008 presidential campaign, but the difference was that McCain called the Obama campaign in advance before going public.
"Ned and Dan have appeared together more than 20 times already this year, and they'll do so again before the primary,'' said Justine Sessions, a spokeswoman for Lamont. "But even after 20 joint appearances, we still haven't heard Dan offer a single idea for how to create jobs. If he wants to try a "different kind of campaign", that's where he should start.''