OMG There’s a Primary on Tuesday, Who Do I Vote For Govenor?

For weeks, in some cases months, the campaign to become the next fill-in-the-blank has been occupying the best and brightest political flunkie minds. Oh, maybe not, but there’s certainly been a fair amount of trees sacrificed to the alter of why the “other guy” is is bad, American pie is good, and bright photos of aging white men who want you to think they can rock the house, legislatively that is. Then there’s Linda McMahon, who no longer wants to rock the ring, is not an aging white man, and plans to introduce chair throwing as a debating tactic in the Senate. But that’s a post for little later.

So what’s a purely registered to a political party voter going to do? Well the faithful, the “TC” types already know that. They’ve been eagerly working the phones and lawns for their candidate du jour. Can we say minds are made up? Yes, we can. For the rest, a not so statistically insignificant amount, my guess is that they reflect the headline. The mailers stacked up on the kitchen table, the guilt associated with being a registered Democrat or Republican hanging heavy with the potent of voting for people they hardly know, or care about. Yes, if you haven’t been paying attention to who is running for something up to this point, you are part of the vast American electorate who hasn’t been paying attention.

The next CEO of Connecticut

Hard to believe but there’s going to be one of these guys running the state by the end of the year. The theme by all candidates running for the Governor’s office is that Connecticut is broken, it is, and they are the guy to fix it.

According to campaign literature, without really reading anything, we can draw several conclusions:

REPUBLICANS

Mike Fedele believes he can fix it by sitting in diners talking to waitresses.

Tom Foley believes he can fix it by reviewing paperwork.

Oz Griebel demonstrates that he’s into streamlined campaigning by not stuffing the mailboxes with campaign literature.

So for the 17 registered Republican voters that haven’t been tuning in, that’s the positive message being sent out. The negative campaigning would have you believe that Foley destroyed a town, and Mike Fedele is a tax and spend liberal. Oz Griebel doesn’t exist.

DEMOCRATS

Ned Lamont believes he can fix it by standing under a ladder.

Dan Malloy believes he can fix it by standing in front of a map.

So what will happen? Well, on the Republican side, the party delegates overwhelmingly picked a guy from Greenwich who has been rather ham fisted during the primary. This means that Mike Fedele could in fact squeak out a victory based on the headwinds gathering steam that maybe you want the nice guy as your candidate rather than the not so nice guy. Suing your opponent over public campaign finance just because you’re a millionaire probably doesn’t sit so well with Waterbury. So I’ll call it for Fedele, even though the polls say otherwise.

On the Democratic side, the faithful predictor of Democratic behavior means that the most un-electable candidate to Waterbury would be Ned Lamont. Therefor Democratic party peeps will vote Ned Lamont in the primary because they think they’re picking the most “hopeful” candidate. Well, we can see how that brilliant thinking, got us the most inexperienced candidate into the Whitehouse. Dan Malloy is the better candidate and he’d make the better governor. But an experience track record for actually doing leadership work at a governmental level, instead of a theoretical level isn’t something that Democratic voters seems to care about. It’s baffling.

You would think that Connecticut Democrats would have learned something about the general population of Connecticut after pushing Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman in 2006. The dynamics remain unchanged and in fact a fairly simple equation will run through the minds of voters in the fall, with a Democratic majority in the state legislature, the vast centrist/moderate voting bloc will hedge their votes by putting in the most moderate candidate as Governor. A Lamont victory hands the governorship to the Republicans. Just like the past 20 odd years.

The money race thus far according to the CT Mirror:

The total spending by the candidates through Aug. 4: Lamont, $8.9 million; Foley, $3.76 million; Malloy, $2.66 million; Fedele, $2.65 million; and Griebel, $467,335.

And if you want to see what they’re all spending money on here’s a sampling:

Fedele:

Foley:

Lamont:

Malloy: