Chester 1st Selectman Marsh has decided to run as an independent, while Newington Mayor Wright chose to run instead for Treasurer.
Those remaining?
Well they won't all be here in a couple of weeks.
Mark Boughton - a good man and pretty much everything he says about Danbury is true. There's little question that he's done a splendid job as mayor - his city looks great too.
Mike Fedele - Connecticut's current Lt. Governor. Fedele alone is truly both prepared for, and knowledgeable as to what and where to cut immediately.
What amounts to mere theory for other candidates is stone cold fact for Fedele; who like every Lt. Governor that's come before him has been nearly invisible for the past 4 years while he's been quietly taking notes.
In the 2010 race only Mike Fedele personifies the boot-strap work ethic of Horatio Alger.
Born in Italy with English being his second language, Fedele is our only gubernatorial candidate that offers the party an opportunity to meaningfully expand our base.
In that regard no other candidate offers anything what-so-ever.
Consider this - 19% (700,000) of Connecticut citizens are of Italian descent (the highest percentage in the U.S.), of that half are registered with a party and of those a full 70% are Democrats.
Neither party has ever fielded an Italian male for the CT's highest office in a general election. I would put forth that the majority will support Mike Fedele and that his election will amount to a watershed event for the Connecticut Republican Party.
Tom Foley - a good and decent man, and a loyal Republican.
Foley's handshake is good too, that he keeps his word would be an understatement.
However, after 50 or 60 years of our opponents painting the Republican Party as nothing but rich white country club members, Foley appears to have come directly from central casting to fulfill that role.
A major Bush supporter and later appointee, Foley served our president and nation with distinction.
Our opponents won't see it that way and instead of running for Governor they'll run against George Bush; which in CT won't increase Foley's chances.
Should he win the nomination and go on to be victorious in the general election as well; Foley will undoubtedly become the subject of almost every political cartoon in every newspaper in the state for his entire term.
"...after 50 or 60 years of our opponents painting the Republican Party as nothing but rich white country club members, Foley appears to have come directly from central casting to fulfill that role."
ReplyDeleteAs did the first President Bush--but I seem to remember you supporting him!
>>As did the first President Bush--but I seem to remember you supporting him!
ReplyDeleteWould again too!
Bush was polite to me personally and I don't recall him doling out cash prizes while seeking delegates.
Nor did Bush have a campaign headed up by someone who had never been part of a winning campaign.
Tanking (3 out of 9 council seats in what was elsewhere a good cycle for Republicans) one's local election is hardly a criteria one would normally look for in a campaign manager.
The race for Governor is an odd place for on the job training.
A few questions about your assessment of Mike.
ReplyDeleteIs English really a second language when you immigrated to the United States as a Toddler?
Do you honestly want someone who was taking notes during four years of the biggest clusterf*&k in state history to be governor?
You're right that the vowel at the end of Mike's name would be beneficial in a general election. But unless 70% of Italians decide to change party affiliation, it will only hurt him in a primary. And even as far as the general election, where was the love from Mike's paisans in North Stamford, a hugely Italian area, when he lost to Andrew McDonald for the senate seat?
Connecticut needs a leader, not a salesman.
I'll not fault any Lt. Gov for failing to stab their own Governor in the back; maybe such a profound level of disloyalty would suit you but more I think would be appalled.
ReplyDeleteHer last legislative session now closed; we might see Fedele break with his boss somewhat.
>>Connecticut needs a leader, not a salesman.
Americans don't need or wish to be "led" - that's for sheep and (rather obviously) Democrats.
Getting our own gov't. off our backs would be nice however; and we could use someone good in sales.
We've already elected an Italian woman born to immigrant parents, Ella Grasso, as governor. Seeing as every governor but her and Jodi were male, how the heck would electing an Italian MALE be a watershed moment?
ReplyDeleteAnd the 'immigrant lifting self up by his bootstraps' schtick comes off as just a little too neat and tidy. His parents were able to afford Fairfield University until he dropped out, right? Not sure how much it cost back then (although college was less of an expected thing) but tuition currently runs around $34,000 a year. I don't point this out to disparage either his or his parents who obviously worked hard to send him there. It's just that it hardly sounds like some hard knock, Dickensian, upbringing. Aside from all that, consider that John Edwards was "the son of a millworker" and Dick Nixon the son of a lemon farmer or some such thing. Lloyd Blankfein was raised in housing projects in Brooklyn and has inarguably been a business success. The point is that rising above it all does not by any means qualify one for office.
Never mind that Mike is the only Republican candidate able to field questions well on the campaign trail - so well and so much better that Foley now invents other places to be so as to avoid public forums where Fedele will be appearing too.
ReplyDelete>>would electing an Italian MALE be a watershed moment?
In a state with the highest percentage of Italian-Americans??
How many other states have elected Italians while we've continually treated them like second-class citizens?
Even speaking Italian in public was frowned upon and even illegal in places during the early 1940's as "the language of the enemy".
Ethnic and/or racial bigotry never had a place in this country and have both been allowed to fester, pulling society as whole down, for entirely too long.
The obvious seems to escape you; or you're a Democrat.
Had the Republican Party embraced the Italian vote 40 - 50 years ago there's no question this would be the most Republican state in the union today.
Further - while your remarks lend themselves to someone with no sense of pride in the nation; the immigrant makes good story; while hardly a Fedele exclusive, is for most Americans our favorite story for it is the story of our nations prosperity.
Fedele thus personifies the nation's finest qualities and in doing so literally ratifies the work of both the early settlers and the very Founders of the United States.
It would be nice to have Governor that not only believed in the American Dream, but knew it to be true having lived it.