Scully Communications

First, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy launched a TV ad with him looking right in the camera. He said rival Ned Lamont (actually, he never mentioned his name, it was “my opponent”) refused to debate him and so Malloy was going to set things straight.

Lamont responded with own ad, slamming Malloy on his claims about job creation and clean government. And of course, Lamont claimed to have debated Malloy 27 times.

Both campaign then responded with news releases—the harshest coming from Lamont running mate Mary Glassman. “Running with Dan four years ago, I watched him tear our party apart with dirty, divisive attacks on good Democrats. He photo-shopped his opponent into a dress, but his negative attacks backfired, costing him the nomination, Glassman said. “I had hoped that Dan learned his lesson in 2006 but his latest run of television ads shows otherwise. These attacks on Ned Lamont are blatantly false and should be out of bounds for any Democrat who cares about the future of our party and our state. I hope he will come to his senses and take the ads down, and if he doesn’t, I hope his running mate Nancy Wyman will join me in condemning these despicable tactics.” Wow. Glassman was Malloy’s running mate in 2006.

Malloy is now out with a hit piece on Lamont. Lamont has campaigned on his experience as a businessman. Malloy takes him to task on his business performance as well as a racial bias lawsuit against his company that was settled and includes a confidentiality agreement. The ad’s tag line is “Ned Lamont—CEO values that cost Connecticut.”

Then there’s the web-only, YouTube video Malloy has up.

There’s less than two weeks to go before the primary. Things will get uglier.

Just a few days before the Republican party nominating convention this spring, attorney Ross Garber entered the race for Attorney General. The timing was no coincidence. The favorite in the race, Democrat Susan Bysiewicz, had just been declared ineligible for AG because, the state Supreme Court said, she didn’t have the required “ten years of active practice of law.” Bysiewicz may be from the other party, but she’s also Garber’s sister-in-law.

Garber has been running hard, getting various town committee endorsements despite the fact that attorney Martha Dean won the party endorsement at the convention. Garber has been meticulously pointing out his differences with Dean—calling her on it when she tries to change positions on key issues—and current AG Richard Blumenthal.

While viewed as a conservative, Garber looks like a reasonable moderate when compared to Dean. The Shad can’t help but wonder whether Dean is packing heat at any given time.

Garber yesterday announced he had the endorsements of Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano and Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia. It’s looking more and more like Garber is headed for an upset win over Dean in two weeks.

Despite his flat-out weird campaign, former US Rep. Rob Simmons has picked up the endorsement of the Hartford Courant. The state’s largest daily newspaper plans to spend next five days or so endorsing candidates for statewide races. The Courant pointed to Simmons’ seemingly impressive resume as the reason to back him in this race.

The state legislature will in fact, hold a special session Friday at 10 a.m. On the agenda will be measures designed to fix the state’s landmark campaign finance reform law. Parts of the law have been remanded to the lower court by the 2nd Circuit US Court of Appeals. Other parts were declared unconstitutional.

Lawyers for the four caucuses in the legislature and the governor huddled for most of the day, trying to come up with a remedy on which everyone can agree. In other words, there is a lot of work to be done between now and Friday to determine just will be done in the session.

Two areas of concern are the ban on lobbyists contributions and the “triggering provisions” that grants more funds to a participating candidate depending on the amount spent by that candidate’s opponents. Both were declared unconstitutional.

One solution on the lobbyists ban may be to limit the amount they can contribute instead of banning them altogether.

On the triggering provisions, the governor has made it clear she doesn’t support raising the grants for gubernatorial candidates.