Lamont’s Urban Challenge, Connecting With Voters

Cordial, decent, smart, successful. Those are observations some voters express about wealthy Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, the Democratic-endorsed candidate for governor. But does he connect with voters, more specifically in urban areas? Lamont has advantages over Mayor Joe Ganim presuming he qualifies for an August primary against Lamont. Campaigns are all about contrasts and in urban Connecticut the contrast is clearest, according to this story by New Haven Independent reporter Thomas Breen. It means Lamont has work to do, be it a primary or general election where he must inspire voters to turn out.

>Afterwards, Saroff said he noticed a difference: He felt Ganim “spoke to me,” while Lamont uttered bromides.

Lamont has advantages over Ganim in their competition to become the Democratic candidate for governor. Money’s the biggest: Lamont, a Greenwich businessman, is funding his own campaign, and has spent $10 million on previous quests. Ganim, Bridgeport’s mayor, has barely broken the half-million mark, and is barred from participating in the state’s public-financing system because of his previous conviction for accepting bribes. Also, Lamont has the party establishment behind him, as he won the state Democratic Party’’endorsement for governor at the party’s nominating convention in Hartford last month.

Ganim, meanwhile, is known as one of the better press-the-flesh campaigners in Connecticut. His ability to connect with people helped him and his campaign collect, he said, 32,000 signatures on petitions to seek a position on an Aug. 14 Democratic primary ballot against Lamont.

Just two weeks earlier, Ganim had come to the exact same room at Bella Vista. Before a crowd about half the size of Lamont’s, Ganim impressed residents with his earnestness and attention, his long-time mayoral experience, and his spin on his own criminal history as an asset for his campaign, donning the veneer of the “second chance society” candidate.

Full story here.

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13 comments

  1. I couldn’t support or vote for a person from Greenwich, who think of Bridgeport as a cheap place for their labor supply. He says one thing to one audience and another to another group, depending on what they want to hear. These pseudo patricians having been fighting Bridgeport’s economic development for a generation. When are the residents of the park city going to say we are not your field slaves.

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  2. So Charlie and The Ripper are either voting for Ganim or are Republicans. That doesn’t surprise me.
    Ganim hasn’t accomplished a damn thing while he was Second Chance Mayor so he could accomplish nothing as a Second Chance Governor.
    Makes sense to me, I think.

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  3. Charlie, all politicians, and I mean all, whether local, State, or Government office seekers, speak to the audience they’re addressing at any given time. By the time they reach the point of competing for votes, they know exactly how to spin what they’re saying while sticking with a common issue that suits all. That’s a fact, it will never change because everyone wants to hear what they want to hear, and the candidates do their research. Sad, but true!

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    1. Thanks Lisa, that was right on point and Bob, oh how true Ganim hasn’t accomplished a damn thing while he was Second Chance Mayor so he could accomplish nothing as a Second Chance Governor.

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  4. *** TRUMP’S ADMIN.& CANDIDATE STAFF SINCE (DEC.2016), HAS SEEN ABOUT 25+ MEMBERS RESIGNED OR FIRED. NOW IN JUNE OF 2018, SLOWLY BUT SURELY, MORE PRESENT OR PAST STAFF WORKERS ARE EITHER RESIGNING, FIRED, OR GOING TO COURT & JAIL! *** MAD DASH LATELY BY “45” TO EITHER THROW THESE PAST EMPLOYEES UNDER THE BUS, OR TALK ABOUT FUTURE “POSSIBLE PARDONS” ? HOW CAN ANYONE WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP, CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THIS CON-MAN & NOT SEE HIM FOR WHAT HE IS? *** GOD BLESS AMERICA, EVERYONE! ***

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    1. Mojo, all three Republican candidates for governor in Connecticut said that they would welcome 45 to come to Connecticut to campaign for them, plus none of the other Republicans who were running for governor at their convention has said nothing. Connecticut deserves better.

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    2. *** You can continue to talk about Ct. politics & the candidates running for Gov. but I’ve had enough of the same old song. I prefer to blog about Trump & his wacky supporters like you, O.D !***

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  5. Really people, you have three Republicans this far that said they would welcome 45 campaigning for them should they win the nomination and Ned Lamont or Joe Ganim. You have three Damn fools, a convict or a Greenwich business, you make the choice.

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    1. Mojo and Don, you have clearly stated what 45 and Republicans support.

      Don, there are those who question our comments about race and they wonder why well that’s American history like Jeff Sessions statement about to separates children from their parents so the adults can be criminally prosecuted for crossing the border without documentation.

      Thursday, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III cited Romans 13 to defend the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” prosecution policy on illegal immigration. In a speech addressed to his “church friends,” Sessions said:
      “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”

      White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Sessions, saying, “It is very biblical to enforce the law.”

      Matthew Schlimm, a professor of the Old Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa, Schlimm noted that people often misuse the Bible. In fact, the same passage Sessions cited has been used to justify slavery and Nazism.

      “So, it’s not surprising that slave traders tore children away from their parents and tried to justify it with the Bible. Or that Nazis tore children away from their parents and tried to justify it with the Bible. Sessions follows the pattern of history,” he said. “What’s chilling is to think that we again live in such morally deranged times.”

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