FIC Blog

Despite Gov. Rell raising $800,000 during the first filing period of her campaign for governor, the Courant makes an ominous comparison in today’s article:

It falls short, however, of early fundraising displayed in other campaigns, most notably the $1 million that Democratic gubernatorial challenger Barbara B. Kennelly collected in the 3 and a half months after declaring her candidacy in September 1997.

Why is it that Gov. Rell’s early fundraising has fallen short of the doomed Kennelly campaign? And what is the true cause of the scandal engulfing Gov. Rell’s chief of staff? Kevin Rennie’s Jan. 1st NE Magazine column came the closest of any MSM outlet in telling “the rest of the story:”

There is glee where there should be fear. Republican activists and officeholders show no signs of regret that Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, is in serious trouble for distributing invitations to a Rell campaign fundraiser from her office… Rell and Moody put themselves in a bind. They set Rell up as the patron saint of reform and virtue in politics. Rell has cast such aspersions on people who participate in politics, herself excepted, of course, that she made contributing to campaigns seem furtive, dirty even.

Her enthusiasm for taxpayer funding of political campaigns left many Republicans infuriated. The woman who says she is the guardian of the public purse bought into a costly left-wing plan for the government to intrude on the fundamental decisions of our democracy.

The law steals traditional rights from many and is likely to be found unconstitutional when challenged. Rell cares not a whit about that. She wanted to be on the side of where she thought the angels were hovering. Rell and Moody, her sole adviser on too may issues, heed one guiding light: follow the love. It is folly to try to keep 80 percent of the public enamored with you. It means you are making no hard decisions, making you prey to the fashions of the moment…

Republican fundraisers report outbreaks of immunity to Rell’s fund raising. People who could raise a lot for former Gov. John Rowland without breaking a saunter to mail the invitations find it hard to make their numbers. Reliable troops who give year after year are saying “no” to Rell. Your basic small government, liberty-loving Republican has no incentive to give her as much as a sawbuck. They want to see the lady sweat a little. And she is.

We are not “Republican activists,” though we are often described as such (and worse) on web sites where the conventional wisdom of the Left poses as deep thinking. But we, too, had heard the rumors of Gov. Rell’s lackluster fundraising results and of the conservative “glee” regarding Ms. Moody’s troubles.

Rennie nails part of the reason above but, as a liberal Republican himself, he skips an important part of the story. For the truth is that Gov. Rell’s betrayals of what should have been her political base are not limited to “small government, liberty-loving” Republicans. She has also alienated pro-family voters in both parties who might have supported her as a bulwark against the most anti-family legislature in recent memory. As a reminder of the dots not being connected by the MSM, here, in full, is my June 30th blog:

GOV. RELL’S LATEST BLUNDER

Republican Gov. Jodi Rell, who signed the bill legalizing same-sex civil unions and the bill committing $100 million of taxpayer money to the cloning and killing of human embryos, clearly has no love for her party’s pro-family majority. According to a front page piece in today’s Courant, the feeling is mutual:

Abortion Issue Roils GOP’s Fundraiser

STAMFORD — Internal divisions over the issues of abortion and increased state taxes on the wealthy clouded the Connecticut Republican Party’s largest annual fundraising dinner Wednesday, where attendance was the lowest in years [emphasis added].

At the dinner Jennifer Blei Stockman, a co-chair of the pro-abortion group “Republican Majority for Choice,” was awarded the state GOP’s highest honor. The Courant reports that Stockman, who has led the fight to make the GOP more pro-abortion, “was chosen for the award” by Gov. Rell. Consistent with the usual disregard for truth so common among abortion advocates, Stockman comments:

“Gov. Rell has united the Republicans. We hope the national party can take some lessons from what is happening in Connecticut.”

What lesson would Stockman like the national GOP to take from the state GOP? “Abandon the pro-life/pro-family platform that made the GOP the ruling party in Washington and embrace the social liberalism that made it a non-entity in Hartford?”

And if Gov. Rell’s decision to honor the pro-abortion Stockman has “united the Republicans,” why did the award dinner have the “lowest attendance in years?” According to the Courant, “one Republican insider said the attendance was “pathetic,'” with tables being described as “empty” or only “partially filled.” Refusing to believe her own eyes, Gov. Rell described the attendance as excellent, “adding that some people had arrived specifically to see Stockman.”

But it seems that many more chose not to attend specifically because of Stockman. It would come as news to this man, for instance, that Rell’s choice of Stockman has “united the Republicans:”

But longtime Greenwich Republican Sam Romeo, who has attended the dinner through the years, said that he boycotted this year because of Stockman.

“For them to honor Stockman is an insult. Mrs. Pro-abortion herself,” said Romeo, a conservative who said that he would support [Mass. Gov. Mitt] Romney financially in his next campaign. “She doesn’t represent me and a lot of Republicans on her stance.”

Romeo said that Stockman is out-of-step with the GOP’s national leaders, and that he could not understand why she was being honored by the state party.

“Doesn’t this fly in the face of George Bush’s conservatism?” Romeo asked. “He’s definitely a committed, pro-life president. How could I go, in good conscience, to that dinner?”

The decision to have the state GOP award its highest honor to “Mrs. Pro-abortion herself” is just the latest in a series of anti-family, pro-abortion blunders by a governor who was never elected to the position. Yes, Gov. Rell’s approval rating was still high the last time the pollsters checked. But former U.S. Rep. Barbara Kennelly’s margins of victory were always high, too, until she faced real competition in a race for governor–then she folded like a house of cards.

A recent interview portrayed Gov. Rell as believing that a likely opponent in the 2006 governor’s race, who is considered hard to beat, will turn out to have a “glass jaw.” But the governor would do well to consider those empty tables at last night’s dinner. They represent not just big donors who chose not to attend, but thousands of pro-family citizens who are deeply offended by the bills she has signed.

If she cannot somehow manage to reverse the anti-family course that she has put her administration on, Gov. Rell may discover that she is the one with the glass jaw.