Behind in the polls and behind in fundraising, former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy challenged Greenwich cable TV entrepreneur Ned Lamont to 17 debates Wednesday as they launch into the primary season.
Malloy, who faces Lamont on August 10 in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, wants “a different kind of campaign” with debates in all 17 cities and towns that have a daily newspaper.
Malloy wants to have many debates, saying there was only one debate in his unsuccessful 2006 campaign for governor in the Democratic primary – a prime-time, televised debate at the Garde Arts Center in New London.
“One,” Malloy said emphatically when asked by a veteran Capitol political reporter Wednesday how many debates he had in 2006 with New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. “That was the New London one. There were some joint appearances, but not many. I don’t think there were joint appearances after the convention.”
But the archives of The Hartford Courant show that there were at least a dozen debates in 2006 on television, radio, and in front of live audiences around the state. The contests included taped debates that aired on “Beyond The Headlines” on Channel 61 and WFSB-TV, Channel 3. The debate at the Garde theatre was held on July 18 – two months after Malloy’s convention victory. Longtime reporter Mark Davis of Channel 8 held a debate on the morning of the convention, and the two candidates appeared live on WPLR morning radio show and on the Stan Simpson radio show at the time. They also appearance in East Hampton, which was memorable because former Gov. William A. O’Neill was in attendance.
Other debates were not televised live, including the first post-convention debate on June 8, 2006 at Rockville High School in Vernon against DeStefano, who later won the primary. Malloy was happy to see the number of newspaper and television reporters at that debate.
“We have more press at this debate than we had at any of the eight or nine debates in the three weeks, four weeks leading up to the convention,” Malloy said that day in June 2006 in Rockville.
Malloy won the Democratic nomination for the second time at the state party’s convention Saturday, but he has remained behind Lamont in the past three Quinnipiac University polls over the past several months. Another poll is scheduled to be released Thursday morning.
In the proposed debates, Malloy said he and Lamont can “test one another’s intellects, test one another’s conceptions of governance, test one another’s experience, and the applicability of that experience to a state in crisis.”
Malloy unveiled the idea to the Capitol press corps on Wednesday morning without having asked Lamont about it. He said he would be calling Lamont in about two hours to ask him personally.
The Lamont campaign said that U.S. John McCain offered the same proposal during the 2008 presidential campaign, but the difference was that McCain called the Obama campaign in advance before going public.
“Ned and Dan have appeared together more than 20 times already this year, and they’ll do so again before the primary,” said Justine Sessions, a spokeswoman for Lamont. “But even after 20 joint appearances, we still haven’t heard Dan offer a single idea for how to create jobs. If he wants to try a “different kind of campaign”, that’s where he should start.”
Malloy told reporters that if he called Lamont in advance and Lamont had said no, then Malloy would be holding a press conference criticizing Lamont about not debating.
Roy Occhiogrosso, a political strategist for Malloy, said the Lamont campaign’s response was unclear.
“Is that a yes or a no?” he asked.
Debates have a long history in Connecticut. In a series of debates that are remembered among the most contentious, then-U.S. Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. and Democratic challenger Toby Moffett traveled around the state for six debates – in the six Congressional districts at the time – in clashes in 1982 that were often broadcast live on public television.
In the general election in 2006, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell had two debates against DeStefano.
The Hartford Courant’s Jon Lender reports that Malloy made references Wednesday to the famous Lincoln – Douglas debates that have been studied for more than a century in the history books.
“Now I couldn’t have come up with this concept this idea without thinking perhaps of the greatest series of debates in our nation’s history,” Malloy said. “As you know, Lincoln debated Douglas, stood toe to toe for seven debates across the state of Illinois. … Those debates lasted a minimum of three hours. One of them, I am told, went as long as eight hours. They started with a 60-minute opening statement, followed by a 90-minute opening by the other, followed by a 30-minute rebuttal by the first candidate. Now, I know some people’s attention spans are not as long as they were in 1857, but I also know that people are yearning for information. People want to be informed.”
Malloy continued, “People want to feel that they’re part of the process. I know that this is a ground breaking concept, and some of you might even dismiss it. There’s no preconceived ground rules. I think what we should do is reach out to the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association and the Connecticut Broadcasters Association, and to other organizations, and bring them in to get this job done.”