The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Hot competition unfolds
For Democrats, suing the Trump administration is almost part of the job description.
So it’s no wonder the nominating race for Connecticut’s attorney general is turning out to be one of the more competitive intraparty contests of 2018 — and it’s only January.
John Rowland prosecutor Chris Mattei said he’s raised the $75,000 needed to qualify for public campaign financing, while the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee co-chairman William Tong, of Stamford, reported a $100,000 haul for his exploratory committee in just 27 days.
“My exploration is going well and we’ve had a very strong response,” Tong said Monday. “Other candidates have taken almost a year to explore statewide office. I’m still getting around the state talking to people, sharing with them how hard I’ve been working as chairman of the Judiciary Committee on the critical issues we’re all worried about — gun violence, civil rights, criminal justice reform and immigration.”
A third contender for the nomination is state Rep. Michael D’Agostino, DHamden, who announced Saturday that he set up an exploratory committee.
Driving Gov. Weicker
Joe Ganim is hardly the first politician to ride on the Autobahn.
Take Tom Foley, the two-time GOP nominee for governor, who got busted for doing 80 mph in a 65 mph zone on Route 9 in Haddam in 2014.
If only Foley had a cop driving him, as Ganim did last week or as Connecticut’s six constitutional office holders often do during their travels.
It’s routine for governors to occupy the fast lane, but not Lowell Weicker Jr., who was a stickler for the rules of the road.
“I told them under no circumstance were they to exceed the speed limit,” Weicker recalled of his state police security detail Monday. “We had to set the example.”
McMahon’s rain-making ways
Time to get Linda McMahon on speed dial, if you’re J.R. Romano, Connecticut’s GOP chairman.
The wrestling mogulturned-Trump Cabinet member is giving generously to Republican causes again after self-imposed moratorium on political contributions.
McMahon, the Small Business Administration head, had asked the Office of Government Ethics last year for a ruling on whether she could still make donations. Well, McMahon is back at it, and perhaps no organization has a greater vested interest than the Connecticut Republicans, to whom the former WWE chief executive could be counted on to “max out” with $20,000 annual contributions.
McMahon gave $2,000 each to the Republican town committees in her hometown of Greenwich and Sherman, as well as $100 to the exploratory committee of gubernatorial hopeful Mark Boughton, Danbury’s mayor, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Requests for comment were left with the SBA and the Office of Government Ethics.
Cold snap
If you thought it was frosty over the weekend, just wait until Republican rivals for governor Tim Herbst and Mark Lauretti share a debate stage.
That could happen Wednesday night in Hebron, if Lauretti accepts the state GOP’s invitation to the second of its five gubernatorial forums.
The hostilities are escalating between the longtime Shelton mayor (Lauretti) and former first selectman of neighboring Trumbull (Herbst), who last week called on his fellow Republicans to pledge their support to the party’s nominee in the general election.
“I don’t feel obligated to respond every time he wants to shoot his mouth off,” Lauretti said of Herbst.
Do the Dew
One would think Chris Murphy would be aligned with Rosa DeLauro and Mike Bloomberg on just about every liberal cause out there.
But when it comes to a soda tax, well, Murphy maybe isn’t the best choice to carry their water. No, the senator loves his Diet Mountain Dew, sipping it during his nearly 15-hour Senate filibuster on gun control in 2016.
And now there’s this. “How excited am I to try White Label Mountain Dew? Very. Very excited,” Murphy tweeted Saturday.
Mountain Dew is introducing four new “spiked sodas” that are non-alcoholic — talk about an oxymoron. They’re sweetened with agave and other natural ingredients. The White Label option tastes like pineapple, grapefruit and citrus bitters.