State Sen. Jonathan Harris
Underticket Scrambler
Photo by Steve Kotchko
Posted 5/17/10
After years of stagnation at the top of the political ladder in Connecticut, the decisions by Republican Gov. Jodi Rell and Democratic U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd not to seek reelection this year set off a mad dash, with numerous candidates in both parties jumping into the races for these plum offices.
Change at the top also has energized the contests for Connecticut’s so-called “underticket” offices: lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of the state, comptroller, and treasurer.
Democratic Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz really kicked off the scramble for underticket posts when she dropped her budding campaign for governor and switched to the attorney general’s race, seeking the job that will be vacated next year because the current officeholder Democrat Richard Blumenthal is running for Dodd’s U.S. Senate seat.
Bysiewicz’ move quickly inspired State Sen. Jonathan Harris (D-West Hartford) and State House Majority Leader Denise Merrill (D-Mansfield) (among others) to go after the secretary of the state post.
In the last few weeks, as Democrats and Republicans moved closer to their party’s nominating conventions (both scheduled for May 21 and 22), the leading Democratic gubernatorial contenders Ned Lamont and Dan Malloy held news conferences to announce their chosen lieutenant governor running mates. Lamont selected Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman (who ended her own gubernatorial bid), and Malloy opted for Democratic State Comptroller Nancy Wyman.
Those actions prompted more scrambling. State Healthcare Advocate Kevin Lembo, who was running for lieutenant governor, switched to the state comptroller race, now that Wyman won’t seek reelection. Lembo previously served as assistant comptroller. State Rep. Tom Reynolds (D-Ledyard) also wants the nomination.
There are a host of other names in the underticket races, for instance State Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell, Richard Abbate, and Corey Brinson are listed as running for the Republican nomination for secretary of the state, but we don’t have the space to list all the hopefuls for all the races in this web piece.
Suffice it to say there is high interest in these offices even if they don’t receive as much attention as the governorship, or U.S Senate. So why are there so many pols scrambling for these jobs?
For ambitious elected officials (and we don’t mean that in a bad way), it’s an important step up the political ladder. After serving as a state lawmaker, or first selectman, getting a spot on the state ticket can be an important advancement. You learn how to run a statewide campaign, work with other officials at the highest levels of state government, and build knowledge and experience.
Then, some years down the road, after “toiling in the vineyard” as secretary of the state or attorney general, perhaps you will be in position to run for the top offices.
Most observers believe Joe Lieberman’s high-profile consumer crusader role as attorney general helped him build name recognition and positive image he needed back in 1988 to topple then U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker. The same game plan was used by the current AG, Richard Blumenthal, to put himself in the catbird seat when the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination opened up after Dodd’s exit from the race.
Wyman’s fiscal watchdog role as state comptroller gave her the “street cred” she needs to help Malloy’s gubernatorial campaign as his running mate.
Of course, there’s no guarantee magic will happen. Democrat Bill Curry served as state comptroller in the 1990s, and tried to raise the media profile of that office. Unfortunately, being comptroller doesn’t offer you many opportunities to generate stories that excite the media. The comptroller handles state employee pay and benefits, prepares financial reports, and maintains a state vendor profile.
Curry tried to put the office into the spotlight, but it didn’t really work. Curry ran for governor in 2002 and lost.
If you tuned into the underticket campaigns this week, as candidates prepare for their state conventions, you’d find the same kind of strategizing, delegate hunting, and fundraising pressures evident in the gubernatorial campaigns at the “top” of the ticket.
Many of the underticket hopefuls could find themselves caught up in the quadrennial deal-making that occurs at state conventions. Though these candidates technically run on their own to secure the nomination (including the right to primary for it) party politics still can play a role.
Local delegations still “in play” in the gubernatorial contest may agree to back a certain candidate, if that candidate helps the local favorite son or daughter secure one of the underticket nominations.
In the old days, party tickets were put together by party leaders to achieve ethnic, racial and geographic balance making them more “sellable” to a wide spectrum of voters. Party chairs don’t have that kind of clout any longer, but if it appeared that one party’s entire ticket was going to turn out to be all white males, over age 50, from greater Hartford, old-style ticket-balancing might be employed.
No one expects voters to get excited about who’s running for state comptroller or state treasurer this fall when the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate battles rev up, but to pols coveting another step up the political ladder, the scramble for an underticket slot seems worth it.