Awaiting Court’s Primary Decision With General Election Days Away

In this penultimate weekend to the Nov. 7 general election, Superior Court Judge William Clark’s decision on the Democratic primary could come Monday or Tuesday. No matter what he decides the losing party will appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Meanwhile the general election will take place with Joe Ganim occupying the Democratic line, David Herz Republican, John Gomes Bridgeport Independent Party and Lamond Daniels running as a petitioning candidate.

As general elections go, the court battle has sucked a lot of oxygen out of typical campaign logistics. All mayoral candidates face some type of financial challenge. Camps are relying more on social media to communicate with voters. Traditional mailings, media buys and paid campaign staffers have been reduced to a minimum.

The Gomes campaign as of late Friday afternoon still had not filed its required campaign finance report with the Town Clerk’s Office so it’s difficult to know a complete picture about its finances. It does provide an opening for the other camps to declare if he cannot even perform the most basic campaign requirement, filing a report on time, how will he manage the city if elected?

This is clearly a self-inflicted wound by the candidate, his treasurer Maria Figueroa and Campaign Manager Christine Bartlett-Josie. The excuse that the campaign was too focused on the primary challenge is a bunch hooey. The treasurer needed to be focused on filing the report in a timely fashion and nothing else.

The campaign or an affiliated operative also, although it did not include the required disclaimer by law, mailed a peculiar letter to registered Republicans claiming “Republicans For John Gomes” providing an opening for Ganim and Daniels to tap him the Republican candidate in a dominant Democratic city.

Ganim has retooled his general election messaging after a dubious primary showing that clearly was a referendum on his mayoralty. He ran behind all the other top line candidates in the primary. Both camps came far short of their turnout goals.

Daniels is trying to make his case as the viable alternative with the backdrop of the primary madness.

If Judge Clark decisions on behalf Gomes, and is upheld by the Supremes, this election season will play out for a while unless Gomes wins the general election. If he rules against Gomes it will still be appealed.

Thousands of voters who did not participate in the primary will turn out for the general election.

Is this stuff about the primary a bunch of background noise? Or something that sticks?