Sunday, November 13, 2005

Open Forum

Special election in Bridgeport tomorrow. Low turnout is expected, which means that absolutely anything could happen. Ed Gomes will probably quietly walk away with the victory anyway.

Dan Malloy was on Stan Simpson's radio show Saturday morning, answering charges that his campaign may be in trouble from his close win last Tuesday. He seemed pretty irritated at the DeStefano campaign. Anybody else catch this?

I am working on a list of legislative races to watch next year, which I will post Tuesday.

What else is happening?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

That stinks. I am on Dan's e-mail list, and I received no word of Malloy's radio appearance. Would have liked to catch it! (Someone please post a transcript, or at least highlights.)

Why would he be mad at the DeStefano campaign? Does he think they used their union ties to subvert Democratic support in Stamford? Does he not like the anti-DLC'ers gloating at his weakness?

The thing that is most important is that Democrats all come together to defeat Rell next November.

Anonymous said...

Curiously, I have seen little news coverage and only one blog post about the 3rd quarter fundraising reports in the 5th Congressional District. Especially odd, because the findings are quite revealing. As Chris Murphy's campaign notes, he set a fundraising record, raising more than any other challenger to Johnson had raised by this point.

A summary:
Raised this quarter: $151,850
Raised this cycle: $253,065
Cash on hand: $234,245

Even more telling is a comparison to Johnson's fundraising:
* 80% of Johnson’s money came from out of state (individuals & PACs), while 80% of Murphy's money came from CT
* Most of her contributions (60%) come from PACs, while Murphy raised 74% from individuals
* 2 out of 3 of her PAC dollars came from Washington - she received contributions from only 4 CT PACs
* Only 44% of her individual contributions were from out of state, while Murphy raised 92% from CT

Here's a summary of Johnson's money:
Raised this quarter: 300,283
Raised this election cycle: 965,551
Cash on hand: 1,922,001

Unfortunately, Johnson is a DC money machine, who has carved out a lucrative niche as corporate and health care industry shill. She is a wholly owned subsidiary of these PACs, and it's tough to run against the Fortune 500's envoy to Connecticut. Overall, 96% of her PAC contributions are from corporations. Her subservience does offer a great campaign issue to Murphy, however.

Paul Vance is limping along:
Raised this quarter: 11,355
Raised this election cycle: 18,189
Cash on hand: 13,071
Who can guess who will win the Democratic primary?

Lest we forget him, Green candidate Bill Davis has $25 cash on hand, and $278 in debt. Could someone spare some gas money for this guy?

Genghis Conn said...

It does look like Murphy will be the nominee. Too bad for Vance, he seems like a good guy.

Johnson still has a towering advantage in name recognition, money and visibility. She spends an awful lot of time puttering around her district meeting with old folks.

I assume Murphy, if nominated, will give up his seat in the 16th.

Anonymous said...

Murphy better have a long term strategy-- because there is 0% chance of him winning in 2006. Johnson has an overwhelming cash advantage, and is safe in her district (especially with Rell at the top of the ticket).

Now, if Johnson retires in 2008 and it is an open sear, Murphy may have positioned himself very well for then....

Anonymous said...

He seemed pretty irritated at the DeStefano campaign. Anybody else catch this?

I didn't catch it but from the email he sent out last week, he does seem to be responding harshly. In my opinion, it's justified - DeStefano's campaign manager got pretty nasty in the wake of the election, and anyone who knows both towns knows that Stamford has a huge R turnout, and New Haven has none. While I was surprised Malloy didn't do a little better, I was equally surprised that DeStefano didn't. He really had no opponent. What percentage would Malloy have garnered if his only opponent had been that Green party guy (Shapiro?) - you better believe it would be 70%.

- my 2 cents

Anonymous said...

Today's Register editorial... I had no idea this was even happening in New Haven.

11/14/2005
EDITORIAL: Authority housing is barely passable
A New Haven Register Editorial

Now, we know why city housing authority officials cheated on the last round of inspections for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The authority is still the city’s leading slumlord.
HUD inspectors checked buildings’ conditions themselves this year rather than relying on a contractor whose list of properties to be inspected ended up last year in the authority’s hands. Those properties were then fixed up before the inspectors arrived. Even with this inside knowledge, the condition of the authority’s buildings rated only a 70 out of a possible score of 100.

Advertisement
On re-inspection, the overall score dropped to 63, barely passable. Of 40 housing complexes checked, 11 got failing marks for their condition. Thirty-nine of the 40 projects inspected had health and safety violations.

On the random checks of the authority’s 2,000 units, the HUD inspectors found blocked fire exits, trash, graffiti, mold in apartments, holes in walls and roof damage.

The HUD re-inspection closes the book on the last year’s cheating scandal. The departed authority officials who condoned the cheating knew that building maintenance was poor. The continuing scandal is that spotty to poor maintenance has persisted for years with only small, temporary improvements.

Anonymous said...

On re-inspection, the overall score dropped to 63, barely passable. Of 40 housing complexes checked, 11 got failing marks for their condition. Thirty-nine of the 40 projects inspected had health and safety violations.

yikes.

Anonymous said...

With all due respect to Chris Murphy, I think there are some of us reading this that feel his latest claims stepped well over the line given the fact that Jim Maloney had clearly raised much more than Murphy had at this point - perhaps Murph should clarify his boasts - Jim faced off against Nancy in a member versus member race - in fact for Murph to catch up with Maloney's 2.25 m raised in 02, Murph has to raise over $5,000 a day, every day, Saturdays and Sundays, holidays, etc., to meet Big Jim's numbers ...

The good thing for Murph is that unlike in 2002 when Bush was riding high and twice campaigned for NJ - Murph has the national wave going with him.

Murph will need less money to get his message out but don't kid yourself if Nancy is threaten, the special interests will come running, they dumped more than $2.2 million in her race against Maloney in 02. (The Seniors Coalition spent more than $800K alone on TV ads).

Murph knows he has a lot more to do to improve his standing but he is on his way if he can keep churning the money.

Anonymous said...

A few brief comments--

Wow, MikeCT seems to show who he roots for in the 5th! How many donors for Johnson or Murphy live in the 5th District and are not lobbyists?

Murphy set a fundraising record? What about Jim Maloney, Murphy's campaign seems to forget that Maloney was a challenger to Johnson!

You can't discount Paul Vance's popularity in Waterbury (the largest city in the 5th District). In today's Waterbury Republican it says about Vance (page 4A), "There's no discounting Vance's popularity with voters. He outpolled all other aldermen by 800 votes."

Anonymous said...

I'm not connected to either Malloy or DeStefano... and quite frankly, at this point in the race, that's the status of most voters in Connecticut.
What I can't stand is the negativity! For God's sake, does the spin machine ever stop with you people? It's sickening. None of you can stop your spitefulness for more than 5 minutes to talk about ACTUAL ISSUES.
Who cares about how much someone won by? The fact is they WON- and guess what- THEY'RE ON OUR SIDE!! You people seem so obsessed with pointing out the faults in each other that you lose site of the true goal- to make Connecticut a better place.
This is my first visit to a political website/blog like this, and I'm just SO turned off that I can understand why political apathy runs so rampant in this country.
My advice is this- cut out this sickening spin, unless you want to end up a souless shell of a person. If you can't stop yourselves, just post under the name "Karl Rove".

Anonymous said...

MUAHAHAHA! I'VE WON!!!!

-Hot Karl

Anonymous said...

Big Rumor in Waterbury-- Jim Smith, CEO/President of Webster Bank considering a run for the 5th CD. He appeared on Face the State this past Sunday. Talk about the ability to raise money, Smith has enough of his own to make Murphy and Vance's campaign funds look like pocket change.

Genghis Conn said...

Huh. A lot of national Dems have lined up behind Murphy. Think they'd drop him for someone with a lot of cash?

Anonymous said...

DeanFan-
You're hilarious. I mean it. Really.
One of Karl Rove's most famous lines of advice is "Never answer the questions asked- answer the questions you would have wanted to have been asked."

Change the subject... Deflect responsibility... 'Refocus' the argument. Bravo!
Shame on you.

Anonymous said...

Did Malloy have an Iraq vote?