The Battle for New Britain is in full swing.<\/p>\n
It’s not Antietam or Gettysburg, but it’s very important to Dannel Malloy and Mary Glassman.<\/p>\n
Malloy and Glassman are one-time allies who are now running against each other for the Democratic nomination for governor. And part of the battle is being waged on Glassman’s home turf of New Britain, where she grew up as Mary Messina.<\/p>\n
The issue started when Malloy announced that he had captured the New Britain delegation after winning the support of town chairman John McNamara and a host of others. Those joining the list include state Sen. Donald DeFronzo, Rep. Timothy O’Brien, town council president Michael Trueworthy, city treasurer Teresa Sapieha Yanchak, and former treasurer Jason Jakubowski, among others.<\/p>\n
Malloy’s campaign touts the endorsements as a remarkable turnaround for a candidate who lost 27 to 4 among New Britain’s 31 delegates in the 2006 race against New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. In the same year, the New Britain delegation voted 24 to 7 for the U.S. Senate candidacy of Ned Lamont, who is now running for governor.<\/p>\n
“We kind of shut Malloy out in ’06,” McNamara told Capitol Watch. “He’s done a lot of sweat equity [since then]. For me, it’s based on ability to govern and a good chance of winning. I think Malloy can fire up the base because he’s tenacious. I think he can fire up the rank-and-file people. … I think Malloy has earned it – although I don’t know why he would want to become governor.”<\/p>\n
But Glassman – Simsbury’s longtime first selectman – isn’t taking New Britain lightly.<\/p>\n
When she and Malloy were allies in the August 2006 primary, Glassman won a higher percentage of votes in her race – 57 percent – than Malloy did in his battle with DeStefano.<\/p>\n
Glassman has announced support from former state Sen. Joseph H. Harper, a conservative Democrat who was a powerhouse in his heyday at the Capitol during the income-tax battles in the early 1990s when he co-chaired the budget-writing appropriations committee. She is also being supported by well-known attorney John C. King, a longtime Democrat who served as a past chairman of the New Britain Town Committee, and Paul D. Catanzaro, the top vote-getter on the New Britain city council.<\/p>\n
As a New Britain native, Glassman is touting her background as the daughter of Angelo and Frances Messina. After graduating from Roosevelt Junior High School and St. Thomas Aquinas High School, she later graduated from UConn law school.<\/p>\n
“Her name is Mary Messina Glassman when she’s in New Britain, and it’s Mary A. Glassman when she’s running Simsbury,” McNamara said. “I get it.”<\/p>\n
McNamara says he was “confounded” when he heard about Glassman’s endorsements because Harper now lives in Berlin, and he has not heard a word recently from John King.<\/p>\n
New Britain this year has 35 delegates, up from 31 in 2006. But the delegates won’t even be picked until late March for the convention that will be held on May 22. New Britain represents the ninth largest delegation in the state.<\/p>\n
McNamara did not denigrate the achievements of Glassman, a well-known attorney at the state Capitol who worked for both House Speaker Moira K. Lyons and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin B. Sullivan.<\/p>\n
“She’s a New Britain success story,” McNamara said of Glassman. “I’ve got great respect for Mary and especially Ned, but the guy from Stamford is the guy who can best put it together.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Battle for New Britain is in full swing. It’s not Antietam or Gettysburg, but it’s very important to Dannel Malloy and Mary Glassman. Malloy and Glassman are one-time allies who are now running against each other for the Democratic nomination for governor. And part of the battle is being waged on Glassman’s home turf of New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}