The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
On the campaign trail with Lamont, Stefanowski
NEW HAVEN — Not one day into the general election campaign for governor, the major party candidates have nicknames for each other: “Trumpanowski” and “Ned Malloy.”
The terms of endearment surfaced after President Donald Trump took to Twitter to endorse Bob Stefanowski, the Republican nominee who skipped the party convention, spent months on TV and answered few questions about his plan to eliminate the state income tax.
Ned Lamont, who handily took home the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary, jumped on the chance to bestow Stefanowski with a new name, while Stefanowski took the same opportunity with Lamont. It’s a political campaign in the age of Twitter and likely an indication of what’s to come over the next three months.
“These Republicans, these are not George and Barbara Bush Republicans, these are not oldfashioned Connecticut Republicans and these are not Connecticut values,” Lamont said, just hours after Trump endorsed Stefanowski on Twitter.
“Congratulations Bob,” Lamont said at a news conference Wednesday morning at his New Haven headquarters. “Nobody embraced Donald Trump more closely than Bob Stefanowski during that primary.”
Lamont’s demeanor Wednesday, as he discussed the upcoming battle with Stefanowski and his plans for a state in financial crisis, was far more subdued than the night before.
Not more than a half-hour after the Associated Press called the race in his favor, Lamont bounded out of a New Haven hotel Tuesday night, hand-in-hand with his wife Annie, to make the five-minute walk down Chapel Street to the College Street Music Hall, where he accepted the nomination.
He grinned ear-to-ear when he paused in the street to answer his cellphone and accept the congratulations and surrender of Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, whom he easily defeated. After finishing his speech, Lamont danced on stage to the 2014 pop hit “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars, again taking his wife by the hand as his daughters laughed at his lessthan-coordinated attempt to be hip.
It was a rare moment of uninhibited celebration by the normally buttoned up, unflappable Lamont.
Ready to run
”Who’s ahead in the Republican race?” Lamont asked, just before he accepted Ganim’s call. A flash of surprise crossed his face at the answer, “Stefanowski.”
It would be more than two hours after Lamont’s shuffle across the stage at the music hall before the rest of the Republican field conceded and Stefanowski was officially declared the winner, but Lamont was already preparing for the next day.
“We’re going to have a real debate about eliminating the income tax, which is the central premise of Bob’s platform, and I think George Bush called that ‘voodoo economics’ in his day ... that will result in crippling cuts to education and a big increase in your property taxes, which is exactly the wrong thing to do,” Lamont said Wednesday morning, quoting state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, who has called Stefanowski’s plan “silly.”
Lamont shared quotes from Stefanowski’s Republican primary rivals Tim Herbst and David Stemerman, who denounced Stefanowski’s plan to cut the income tax, stressing the math doesn’t add up. Both Herbst and Stemerman said they will support Stefanowski in the general election.
Lamont said he hopes to hold the line on the income tax, offering little more detail than he did on the campaign trail about how he wants to streamline government and raise revenue to dig Connecticut out of its multibillion-dollar fiscal hole, and attacked Stefanowski’s plan as a “lie” to the voters.
“I view it as the same kind of empty promise that has gotten Connecticut to the brink of collapse,” Lamont said.