The nastiest race in the nation?

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Posted: 9/9/02

"Death to the Prince of Darkness." It sounds like something out of an old Robin Hood movie, but unfortunately this statement was made most recently right here in Conn.

At the Conn. Dem. nominating convention in July, the invocation speaker, prominent Dem. activist Ned Coll, stated "Death to the Prince of Darkness" in reference to incumbent Rep. Gov. John Rowland. Coll went on to say that Rowland is a "snake" and that Rowland is "pure evil." Coll knows this from "looking into

Rowland's eyes." Nice. Very nice.

One might dismiss these comments as those of a village idiot, but the fallout following these comments has been interesting.

Several prominent Conn. Reps. insisted that Coll apologize for his comments, and they asked Dem. Gubernatorial candidate Bill Curry to denounce what Coll said. Interestingly, the only Conn. Dem. to step up and say that these comments were out of line was Sen. Joe Lieberman.

The politics of personal destruction have no place in a campaign as important as the race for governor. These comments extend far beyond the realms of a typical negative campaign. This is politics at its dirtiest and nastiest.

The sad part is that this nastiness is not too surprising. It is common knowledge that when a campaign has little to no issues to run on, it starts to turn negative. Bill Curry and his campaign have no legitimate issues to run on and so now they are slinging mud.

Gov. Rowland is running on his record, while Bill Curry is running on the politics of personal destruction. In the past 8 years, Gov. Rowland has cut taxes by almost $2 billion, brought 126,000 new jobs to Conn., and brought Conn.'s unemployment level to the third lowest in the nation. Indeed, in this campaign, Gov. Rowland is talking about what is right about Conn., while Bill Curry and company are talking about what is wrong with Conn.

They say that your character can be judged based on the company that you keep. Following his first gubernatorial loss to Rowland in 1994, Curry went to work in Washington as a consultant to Bill Clinton. Thus the turn that Curry's campaign has taken comes with little surprise. The voters of Conn. will likely see through the charade of the Curry campaign and send him packing.