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.