Paul Bass Photo
As his opponent took a no-new-taxes pledge — and pulled even in the polls — Democrat Dan Malloy brought his gubernatorial campaign to the lunch-cart crowd by the hospital, determined to defend two unpopular positions with more than sound bites.
Days away from Tuesday’s election, Malloy at this last stage finds himself confronting the political version of those two verities facing all of mankind: death and taxes.
Republican candidate Tom Foley took a read-my-lips oath this week: He vowed not to raise state taxes his first year in office.
Malloy refused to take the pledge, possible poison in a recession-plagued, mad-as-hell election year.
Foley has also come out for the death penalty. He has promised to veto an expected death penalty abolition bill.
Malloy has maintained his opposition to the death penalty. He has promised not to veto the bill. More possible poison in a year when the Cheshire triple-murder trial has dominated the news and voters’ support for the death penalty has skyrocketed. (Read about that here.)
Public and internal polls showed Foley, the underdog, basically pulling even with Malloy this week. Their difference on taxes appears to resonate with voters more than any other specific issue, Foley said. “Everybody thinks they’re paying enough in taxes,” he said. “Paying more in taxes is a bad idea.”
Malloy took a few minutes to explain his position Thursday (click on the play arrow to watch part) as he prepared to dive into the ocean of lunchers from Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale’s medical school who frequent the aromatic Indian, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Italian, and Thai food carts along Cedar Street and sit in the adjacent courtyard. Members of Yale’s UNITE HERE unions joined him in passing out flyers.
As with his position on the death penalty, Malloy portrayed his taxes stand as nuanced, based both on what’s right and wrong, and what works.
The state already faces a projected $3.26 billion deficit. Newly discovered growth in Medicaid costs will add another $750 million, Malloy noted. He doesn’t want to raise taxes, he said. He doesn’t plan to. But no future governor can honestly rule it out, he argued.
He suggested that Foley’s pledge rings hollow given that Gov. M. Jodi Rell and predecessors John Rowland and Lowell Weicker made the same no-new-taxes vow — then signed budgets that raised taxes.
“The last thing I want to do is raise taxes. But what I’m not going to do is do what every other governor has done, the last three governors we’ve had: make a promise and then break it. And even Mr. Foley is saying his promise is good for only one year,” Malloy said.
“We’re going to balance this budget. Everything is on the table except the safety net. I am not going to put mentally ill people on the street. That’s what other governors have done. I’m not going to empty out institutions where we treat people for alcoholism and drug addiction. That’s what other governors have done.”
Later Thursday, Foley was asked about Malloy’s point about the three last governors. How does he go about convincing voters believe he’ll be any different?
“Well,” he said. “Watch me.”
Weicker in particular always intended to support the creation of an income tax, but he knew he couldn’t get elected in 1990 saying that, Foley argued.
“That’s what makes people sick to their stomach about career politicians,” he said. “They’ll say anything to get elected. I’m not like that.”
He said that he and Malloy have presented voters a clear difference on taxes that will work in his favor. “If you’re a voter and you don’t want your taxes raised, who are you going to vote for?” he said. “The guy who says he’s not going to raise your taxes?” Or the candidate who says he might?
Jarrod Longcor wasn’t sure.
Malloy came by Longcor’s table in the Yale medical school courtyard on Thursday’s lunchtime swing. Longcor was eating a burrito with two colleagues from a pharmaceutical firm down the street called Rib‑X. Malloy made a quick appeal for their votes, then moved on.
Afterwards, Longcor (at left in photo above), who lives in East Haven, said he definitely plans to vote next Tuesday. (“It’s too important not to vote.”) He still hasn’t decided whom to vote for. Taxes rank at the top of his issues. He moved here three years ago from Maryland, where taxes were lower, he said.
But he won’t decide between Foley and Malloy based on who promises not to raise taxes, Longcor said.
“Neither of them wants to raise taxes. That doesn’t win an election,” but whoever does win might very well raise taxes, anyway, Longcor predicted. His vote will come down to “who I trust more,” he said.
Navigating the cart-filled Cedar Street corridor, Malloy squeezed in handshakes and “Hi. Dan Malloy. Please vote on Tuesday“s to workers scurrying back to their offices. He got in a few more words with Dennis Fedorchak (pictured above), a med school carpenter relaxing on a street bench. Fedorchak promised he’ll pull the Malloy lever. “He supports the working man,” Fedorchak said. “He’s not looking to union-bust. Everything he stands for, we stand for.”
New Haven Central Labor Council President Bob Proto echoed the union theme in introducing Malloy to some of his members gathered around the courtyard lunch tables. “Dan’s opponent is trying to get in government to help the rich get richer. Dan knows what it’s like to grow up in a middle-class family,” Proto declared.
Foley, meanwhile, raised the union theme, too — to argue why he believes he, unlike Malloy, will be able to avoid raising taxes. His ability to make spending reductions is limited because he has made commitments to state workers unions,” Foley said. Malloy denies he has made budget-busting commitments. Click here and here for CT Mirror analyses of how both candidates have made costly promises without detailing enough cuts to produce a balanced budget.
It simply amazes me how Connecticut voters can so easily be duped, over and over again by both parties with the same political rhetoric. As a registered Independent I find this midterm election one of the worst I've had to endure in the last 35 years. The Gubernatorial and Senatorial races are a complete joke, and the local races are simply moronic. In my area of Ct. we have an inept Republican and a wash and wipe Democrat incumbent running for state rep, and an unopposed Republican incompetent for St.Senator. I can't believe God has anything to do with politics, unless political elections like this one are a cosmic curse on Mankind.