"I am not taking money from the Republican Party, period," Rell told reporters.
But Rell said she would not be averse to her campaign viewing polling data collected by the state party, which would be an in-kind contribution.
...
Democrats have long predicted that the Republican governor will use her party to get around a self-imposed ban on contributions from lobbyists and state contractors. (Pazniokas)
So much for that line of attack. I have to think she's been raising enough money to make her feel secure in taking the high road on this. Make no mistake, it's much easier for Rell to take the high road than her opponents because of name recognition and lofty approval ratings, but she must be raising money at a good clip to respond to a minor attack by cutting herself off from party funds.
If she is raising decent money, it's a smart move. It helps insulate her from any attacks the Democrats can make in this area, which decreases the possibility that they'll run right at her perceived strength a la Karl Rove.
Source
Pazniokas, Mark. "Rell Says She Won't Use GOP Funds." Hartford Courant 10 December, 2005.
32 comments:
I didn't hear anything that said the stae party, or anybody else, can't campaign on her behalf. The swift boat group might even come to her aid.
Any news as to whether DeLauro has her sights set on Menendez's soon-to-be-vacant Whip post?
"Swfit boats"?...did DeStefano tell tall tales about Nam vets?
If he wanted to position himself for a run for Congress, this wouldn't be a bad way for him to raise his profile:
New immigration strategy
Boughton forms group to launch national effort to reform laws
(By Eugene Driscoll [Danbury] NEWS-TIMES)
It also reviews one of the natural fissures in the GOP coalition, to wit:
"Boughton said the idea of the coalition is to get the debate out of the neighborhoods and into Congress, which he said has "shown a unique unwillingness" to confront immigration issues."
The GOP is paralyzed on this because while the part of the party writing the checks and arguing for so-called "free trade" sees cheap immigrant labor as a good thing, the reactionary isolationists want them all thrown out and the Mexican border militarized.
And, speaking of irresolvable conflicts of interest,
"Illegal immigration is an issue that Congress must address. In fact, next week the House will consider legislation to stop lawbreakers and strengthen our borders," Johnson spokesman Brian Schubert said in an e-mail. (ibid)
That'll be fun.
There are two significant flip-flops by Gov. Rell in that story.
The first is that her so-called ban on contributions from contractors is not really a ban at all. As the story points out only those individuals that "PERSONALLY solicited, negotiated or signed a contract with the state since July 1, 2004" are excluded. As the story indicates, that means an owner (or the legions of employees) could donate if they didn't personally interact with the state. That is NOT what the average person would have understood a "ban" to be.
The second is saying she'll take "no contributions," but then turning around and saying "in-kind" contributions are fine. In-kind contributions can be significant value. Besides, that is not the point of the DeStefano argument.
The point is that the Party committee will grow to do more politically oriented tasks than it has done in the past. More field, more mail, etc.
Mr. Gallo says that the current party committee is broke. Actually, that fits in pretty well with the money washing concerns. In the present state, the party committee is NOT an active political entity. I'd be surprised if someone of Mr. Gallo's organizing ability was simply going to preside over a moribund paper shell during an election year. The committee is going to grow with funds from sources that the candidate committee can't accept.
We'll be able to tell by looking a the overall size of the state party committee's expenditures across gubernatorial elections and by looking at the previous ratios of candidate committee-to-party-committee expenses.
I bring these issues up because I find that Gov. Rell gets to say one thing and do another. My candidate, John DeStefano, doesn't have Rell's policy. It's dishonest to pretend to have a formula to circumvent the private electoral funding systems' limits, when the reality is that competitiveness under the system forces candidates to take funds from organized interests. DeStefano is consistent in his words and actions. Gov. Rell's team does not appear to be.
Jeez, you guys on your own planet. Good thing my town is on well water since there is something in the New Haven reservoir
Rell was a college dropout, Yeah's there's the ticket for getting blue collar voters to vote Democrat.
Jimmy Carter graduated near the top of his class at the Naval Academy. John McCain barely graduated. Who is held in higher esteem by the American people?
I suppose Harry Truman was a failure too (of course you guys would have been Henry Wallace voters in 1948, so maybe you are consistent.) So much for a winning Cold War strategy, let's check your transcripts!
More I think of it, it seems the more "intellectual" candidate usually LOSES election in the U.S.
(Bill Curry was too bright to realize this, of course).
RE: a broke party being an indicia of corruption? Does the term "grasping for straws" mean anything in the Ivory Tower south of Hamden?
How about "City for Sale"? I suppose Johnny D wants to put to the other 168 towns up for auction too
DeanFan--
What are you talking about? Rell has a Law Degree from the University of Hartford. It says so right on her website.
Nice try at your smear, slimeball!
RELL FAN SORRY BUT UNIVERSITY OF HARTFOED DOESNT HAVE A LAW SCHOOL...SO HOW COULD RELL HAVE A LAW DEGREE FROM THERE?
IN ADDITION NANCY DINARDO SENT A PRESS RELEASE SUPPORTING JOE LIEBERMAN AGAINST ANYONE THAT MIGHT CHALLENGE HIM.
The Republicans don't care about education. Nixon made Annenberg Ambassador to England and Walter dropped out of Ivy UPenn eventhough he was one of their biggest competitors. Get real. dropping out of Western is like giving up on a chugging contest.
DF. Please find the sheepskin here
http://library.ccsu.edu/oneill/
and find one here
http://www.cga.ct.gov/hdo/HDO118.asp#Biography
BTw, Home Depot has a special on brooms, after you need to clean up the broekn glass in the Democrat House
dean fan 84 you may find nancy dinardo's glowing endorsement of joe lieberman either in the courant archives or state central webpage...you can also call them and they will email and/or fax you a copy....i do hope you all go there and demand her resignation....a chair of state central should be neutral....also nancy dinardo is a big joe giver and supported him for President as did that big progressive Leslie O'Brien,political director of state central who used to sit on CCAG's board...she will do anything for a paycheck, even sellout cheaply her progressive friends.
Rell Won't Use GOP Funds
Perhaps Rell doesn't need those GOP funds Because she got her hands on some of that gold bullion too and when she needs money she just digs it up in her back yard.
Huh. It's true (or at least part of it is):
M. Jodi Rell's life can be caricatured in one sentence: Rell, 58, grew up in Norfolk, Va., dropped out of Old Dominion University in the 1960s to marry a naval aviator-turned-airline pilot, moved to Connecticut, had two kids, got a dog and joined the PTO.
Pazniokas, Mark. "The State of Rell." Hartford Courant 2 Jan, 2005, p.NE3.
Another brief biographical sketch of her from 1994 says she "attended" both colleges, but it specifically lists degrees for every other candidate who had one.
"1994 Republican State Convention Candidates." Hartford Courant. 24 July 1994, p.A8.
Her law degree is honorary.
I'd say that Rell not having a college degree isn't a big deal. You may disagree with her politics, but she's neither stupid nor shallow, and not having the degree hasn't hurt her in any way.
Besides, going to school for a while and then dropping out to get married wasn't uncommon for women of her generation.
(I found these articles, by the way, through ICONN.org, which is the Connecticut Digital Library site. An archive of Courant stories back to 1992 is there. Every Connecticut resident with a library card has access to it. I highly suggest going there to check it out! [/librarian])
Please ... if the best you got is 'she didn't graduate from college', just mail it in, 'cause you're done!
Sorry folks, our lefties never leave Paeline Kael-ville.
There are moderates and cosnervatives in CT, but not in New Haven
Bush Kerry
New Haven 7175 30979
So it's just the old liberal echo chamber of folks who aspire to be graduate students until their 40. and then hope there's some government program to employ them until they can draw a pension.
The idea someone can find wisdom or fulfillment away from the halls of academe doesn;t occur to these people.
So go ahead, insult the last Democrat who actually won a majority of the vote for Governor. Insult your own Speaker of the House. Maybe you can have a good scream election night while I'm quietly quaffing Buds with the happy proles
Random thoughts:
I am a college drop-out as well, so I won’t criticize Rell for not finishing college. What we learn in the real world is often much more important. I am sure that Rell learned a lot serving with the people she did over the past eleven years.
I was interested to read about Rell’s honorary degrees. It made me think of a comment by Blue in CD2 talking about getting an honorary degree: ‘I recieved [sic] an honorary doctorate from a local University, but that doesnt [sic] mean you should call me Doctor!” Is Blue in CD2 really Rell?
As to Anonymous(7:57)’s comment that ‘There are moderates and cosnervatives [sic] in CT, but not in New Haven’ and arguing this based on Kerry taking New Haven by over a four to one ratio. Are we to assume that Anonymous(7:57) believes that only liberals vote for Kerry, and no moderates or conservatives? If that is true, then we liberals are a lot better off than pundits have been suggesting. It means there are over 59 million liberals in the country.
One final comment: It is a beautiful Sunday morning. I hope that this comment can be taken with the levity that is intended.
All of this pompous self-important haughtiness about Rell's college education is exactly why so many of the liberal elite of the Democratic party are so out of touch. It is exactly why they've been hemmoragging voters in the South and Midwest. And if Democrats in Connecticut want to alienate their own base here in Connecticut by making a big deal out of a degree, I encourage them to do so! Because many of the voters that Democrats have to reach out to don't even have high school diplomas, and so if the Party gets all arrogant about education, they just might find themselves dramatically losing support.
To wit, there are many successful leaders without degrees. The richest man in the world is a college drop out - admittedly not out of WCSU. The people of Connecticut want a person in the Governer's mansion that they can relate to, and that person is Jodi Rell.
Will DeStefano and Malloy swear off this use of loopholes?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/12/11/teachers_union_quietly_aiding_candidates/
Rell's education is a non issue just like Amann's is never an issue. Rowland had a college education and we saw what he did...It's going to come down to the old Johnny Carson question of who(m) do you trust to be govenor? So far people trust Jodi. DeStefano and malloy sound like shifty characters picking on Rell the way they do. Nobody cares about campaign finance reform and they all know Malloy and DeStefano did what they did with state aid. Some of the bloggers on this site sound like they live in a bubble.
DF, when you snobs demand Jim Amann's resignation we'll take you seriously
DeanFan, i will not be voting for Rell, but when you make an issue out of this you show your political inexperience. the fact that she did drop out of college and made it to where she is, makes her more formidable, not less. please do not underestimate jodi rell.
PMD,
Give it a break.Jodi Rell was picked for Lt. Gov. because of her ineptitude NOT because she is formidable.
By her own admission she occupied an office next to the most corrupt politician in Ct. history and was either ignorant of or to ignorant to see what was happening under her nose.Either that or she was complicit to the corruption.
Lets make Rell explain it instead of giving her the "I'm Not Rowland" poll numbers.
I don't know, DeanFan. There's nothing to suggest that she couldn't handle the academics at Old Dominion or WCSU. She obviously isn't stupid.
Let's find out the facts. Her reason for leaving Old Dominion (to get married) is understandable enough, especially in the context of the times. Why didn't she finish WCSU?
Politically, this is a really, really bad line of attack for Democrats to persue. Republicans would like nothing better than to point to Democrats and accuse them of being effete academic elitists, which is exactly what you open yourself up for.
DeanFan,
As I said,
Republicans would like nothing better than to point to Democrats and accuse them of being effete academic elitists, which is exactly what you open yourself up for.
It is a line of attack, and that's exactly what Republicans will say. Trust me. Pursue it at your own risk.
DF, again, are you calling on Speaker Amann to step down?
Until you do, not only will you be an elitist, but a partisan hypocrite
How do we define "governor material?" Are there certain background qualities or experiences we should look for? Rell was represented Brookfield in the House for a decade, and served in several leadership positions before becoming Rowland's Lt. Governor. Perhaps it isn't the most impressive resume in the world, but it's hardly nothing. Should there be more?
What in his background qualifies John DeStefano to be governor? Dan Malloy?
GC,
Even the Republicans think she's an "Empty Suit".
One of my friends got in an elevator at the Capital on the day of the state of the state speech last yr and overheard this remark from an R state senator.
"If she's a Republican I'm Dennis Kucinich.I expect her propose taxing water by the time she's done."
She has no political sway over her own party as the Campaign Finance Bill Proved when she could only get 4 of her own party members to go along with her.
She is despised more by real Republicans than any Democrats.As week as she is the Dems may gain enough house seats to make her veto useless.
Considering the Democrats' core constituency is people with no HIGH SCHOOL diploma I think it is kind of ironic that she is being criticized like this.
She says she left college to raise a family. Yeah, residents in CT are really going to hate that.
Howard Dean paid for a doctor's note so he could go skiing in Colorado instead of soldiering in Vietnam. Lots of rich kids did that. Rell raised a family while her husband worked instead of going to college. Deanfan would probably take away Bill Gates' right to work permit too.
I find this whole discussion fascinating. As a college dropout myself, I will not criticize any of the candidates based on whether they got a degree or not. For that matter, I won’t criticize them based on whether they got their education (which can be very different from getting a degree) from a state university, a well-known private school, or at the right had of a corrupt governor.
Genghis asks, “How do we define ‘governor material?’” I think that is the question we need to be talking about. To me, an important part of ‘governor material’ is how you approach the issues that matter. It sure seems, based on the discussion here, that education is one such issue.
Saturday’s Hartford Courant has a letter by Mayor DeStefano concerning public schools. Molly mentions this letter on the DeStefano blog.
In the letter, Mayor DeStefano highlights some of the achievements in New Haven: “The high school dropout rate, now the lowest for any major city in Connecticut, has been cut in half, and the percentage of third-graders reading on grade level has increased from 15 percent in 1998 to 85 percent last year.”
So, if we are going to talk about education, let’s talk about want is getting done to provide better educations for the people of Connecticut.
DeanFan and CTkeith, i want to repeat, underestimate jodi rell at your own peril. people have been doing that her entire political career. after all, she was just a PTO mom, she could never get elected to the state house, never mind be chosen to run as Lt gov, or actually be governor. and as for this 'governor material' you guys tout. hate to break the news to you, but there is about 78 percent of this state that thinks she is gov material and its the voters of this state who decide who they think is gov material, not us on this blog.
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