9th goes to Thompson, 11th Unrepresented
The 9th House District Republican delegates met at 8PM tonight for candidate selections. As expected there were three candidates, Cliff Thompson, Michael Crockett, and Dennis Brenner, nominated.
Video will follow but Thompson won with an easy majority. Delegates attending reported hearing Crockett hint at a primary.
As it stands Thompson will be facing either Jason Rojas, an East Hartford Councilman, or Joseph Hachey who is a previous Town Director and current resident of Manchester. The 9th district Democrats meet Tuesday at 7PM at the Glastonbury headquarters located at 2341 Main Street (which is oddly next door to the Republican headquarters at 2333 Main Street).
The 11th house district Republican delegates also met tonight at 8PM. I have no video of this event, since it was over before I got there from the 9th District convention, which is just as well because no candidate was selected to face the expected Democratic nominee Tim Larson.
Also, the Republican 3rd Senate District delegates met Tuesday night for candidate nominations to face incumbent Gary Lebeau but none were nominated. A vacancy committee is actively seeking candidates.
The saddest information I derived from this year’s State elections is the following:
Anyone running for State Representative can collect up to $5000.00 from individual contributors; those contributions can be no less than $5.00 and no more than $100.00, they have to come from within the candidate’s district, and from no more than 150 individual contributors. For the $5000.00 collected by the candidate, the State of Connecticut will match it with $25,000.00. In the Senate race, the same rules apply except that no more than 300 individuals can contribute up to no more that $15,000.00, and from that initial $15,000.00, the State of Connecticut will match it with $85,000.00. The money coming from the State is Taxpayer money. Apparently it is supposed to ‘level’ the playing field of campaign finance, so that no one candidate has more than $30,000.00/State Reps and $100,000.00/Senate to spend on their campaigns.
There is so much I find wrong about this new law, I don’t even know where to begin. The most pressing thought I have is that the millions being spent on campaigns across the country is appalling and could be better used in other extremely needy areas. For every candidate, win or lose, once the campaign is over, who has actually benefited from those contributions? Certainly not our local homeless shelters, or the ASPCA, or families still without homes in the Gulf Coast, etc. This may not be the biggest problem we are facing, but it certainly gives one perspective on the priorities of the ‘powers that be’. Shame on the State of Connecticut