Dan Malloy as the closer
Something said during the gubernatorial debate earlier this month in New London, with all three candidates on stage, for some odd reason reminded me of the popular 1960s television series "Gilligan's Island."
Maybe it was talk of Republican Tom Foley and his $5 million yacht that made me think of millionaire Thurston Howell III, a character in the TV series who was stranded with the others after a three-hour boat tour from Hawaii gone bad.
Like Howell, Foley makes for an easy caricature of an insensitive rich guy. Howell commiserates in one show with wife, "Lovey," about the lack of an upstairs maid in their one-floor hut.
Foley, who hasn't paid any income taxes for a couple of years, in real life managed to bust a union after a nasty three-year strike at one of the factories he once owned, with guard dogs called in to keep the peace.
Independent gubernatorial candidate Joe Visconti, meanwhile, makes for a good "Skipper" from the series, amiable and ready to please, but really clueless.
It is Gov. Dan Malloy who could be cast as the professor character, hard at work on projects to get the S.S. Minnow afloat and off the island, while Howell complains a lot and does none of the work.
Indeed, since the New London debate, Malloy has slipped into closing mode for a campaign that has been more polished and successful than anyone might have imagined back in the spring, when the state seemed to be still wallowing in a dysfunctional economy.
It's not clear that someone who runs a good political campaign is going to run the government well. But it is increasingly clear that Malloy has gone a long way toward atoning for mistakes made governing, successfully using this campaign to bring home some parts of his base he managed to alienate over the last couple of years at the helm of the state.
I heard some diehard insider Democrats suggest at the outset of the gubernatorial campaign that they could survive another Republican governor and that might be preferable to a Democrat who sometimes seemed high-handed and autocratic.
And yet an attentive Malloy seems to have charmed, cajoled and scared much of his base back into the fold, reminding everyone of significant progress on core issues, investing in schools, outlawing the death penalty, approving medical marijuana, raising the minimum wage, instituting new paid sick leave, tightening gun laws - things that probably could not be done with a Republican governor.
During this same campaign, the economic winds turned and are now at the governor's back. Malloy can claim credit for a jobs report last week that was the best for the state in 20 years and an unemployment rate at a six-year low.
Candidate Foley, on the other hand, has run a haphazard campaign that brings to mind Thurston Howell, sitting around the island, complaining.
Foley has made so many missteps, it is hard to keep track. They began back before his formal campaign even started, when he publicly accused Malloy of unethical behavior, with no proof at all. The charges, roundly denied, disappeared.
At that time, Foley demanded that Malloy release his tax returns to prove he wasn't a crook. It turns out it was Foley's returns, showing he didn't pay any taxes at all, which alienated voters.
And, really, how could Foley, knowing he was going to run for governor again, not have told his accountant that he needed to pay some taxes.
But the Foley campaign often seems tin eared and short on judgment, showing up in places where he has no clue about what's going on, be it a plant closing in Sprague or forums on transportation or state housing policies.
This week he again brought the name-calling, scandal-plagued governor of New Jersey to Connecticut to campaign on his behalf. This seems especially odd given that Chris Christie's poll numbers seems to be falling as fast as Foley's these days.
The most devastating pollster report from the Malloy-Foley race was the observation that the more people get to know Foley, the less they like him.
I attended the Chris Christie rally at The Spot in Groton on Monday and was struck by how well the Malloy camp outmaneuvered the Foley campaign.
It looked like Malloy protesters maybe even outnumbered Foley rallyers and, at times, it was hard to hear speakers inside the Foley bar tent because of someone on a bullhorn in the Malloy camp across the street, shouting over and over: "Christie is corrupt!"
The biggest Foley campaign failure has perhaps been his inability to energize his own base.
He has promised to shave a half percent off the sales tax and to hold the line on spending, hardly barn-burning promises to conservative voters who want big tax cuts and a much smaller government.
I once heard Foley talk about long wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles as evidence that state government is understaffed. He said that. Honest.
Then there was the debate Foley skipped last week. It's the one in which Malloy presented himself as the seasoned campaign closer, describing a state on the mend, budgets balanced and significant investments made on education, job growth and transportation infrastructure.
There was no Republican candidate to contradict the Democrat, just an independent to suck away conservative votes.
If the professor doesn't win this one, Thurston Howell may be able to chalk up a victory more to the good fortune of a charmed life than hard work.
This is opinion of David Collins
d.collins@theday.com
Twitter: @DavidCollinsct
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