CT News Junkie scoured Democrat Dick Blumenthal’s campaign finance filing and found more than $200,000 in PAC contributions.
Blumenthal has always taken pride in the fact that he has not accepted special interest money — until he launched his U.S. Senate campaign.
When he told MSNBC shortly after announcing his Senate candidacy that “I’ve never taken PAC money and I have rejected all special interest money because I have stood strong and have taken legal action against many of those special interests,” he was talking about his past runs for AG, not the current Senate campaign.
“He was asked about, and he talked about what he did as attorney general,” spokeswoman Maura Downes said. “He wasn’t asked about and he didn’t talk about what he would do in this campaign.”
Linda McMahon, one of Blumenthal’s Republican opponents, lashed out against the AG for the apparent contradiction. “If he thought special interest money would compromise his ability to enforce laws as A.G., why doesn’t he think it will compromise his ability to write laws as a Senator?” McMahon campaign spokesman Ed Patru told CT News Junkie.
Blumenthal campaign chairman Michael Cacace called Patru’s question “laughable.”
“While Dick Blumenthal has been taking on big fights on behalf of the people of Connecticut, Linda McMahon has been a special interest, playing the ultimate insider game of hiring lobbyists to weaken drug regulations and line her own pocket,” Cacace said in a statement emailed by the campaign.
Blumenthal’s past refusal to accept PAC money stemmed from “an abundance of caution” to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, Downes added.
“As the attorney general, he is a law enforcement officer…he could have gone to court against certain organizations and individuals..but the role of a senator is much different. You’re not an officer of the court.”
But Blumenthal is still attorney general — doesn’t his acceptance of campaign cash from PACS associated with the Phoenix Companies Inc., ING and AFLAC pose the same potential conflict?
“The people of the state of Connecticut know him and they know that no one single contribution, whether it’s from an individual or a PAC, is going to influence what he does,” Downes said.