After months of painting Democratic opponent Richard Blumenthal as a liar and stealer of valor, the McMahon campaign is trying a more conventional approach: targeting him as a typical tax-and-spend liberal.
"Dick Blumenthal is just another politician and Connecticut can't afford more of the same,'' McMahon spokesman Ed Patru said in a statement yesterday. "He says he supports lower taxes, but he voted for the largest tax in Connecticut history. Dick Blumenthal just doesn't get it."
Most people would probably say the "largest tax in Connecticut history'' was the 1991 vote to institute a state income tax. Trouble is, Blumenthal had departed the legislature by then and was already serving as attorney general, a post that does not generally have much to do with state tax policies.
I asked Patru what he meant and he cited Blumenthal's 1989 vote on the state budget that included a provision increasing the state sales tax to 8 percent. (Blumenthal was serving in the state Senate at the time.)
A Courant story published on May 31, 1989 referred to the measure as "the largest tax increase in state history,'' but that was two years before the income tax was enacted.