Pre-Primary Round-up

Since it's Sunday several news outlets have pre-primary commentary. CTNewsJunkie had two interesting pieces. The first one I wanted to bring attention to is the video:

Having worked on campaigns before I shouldn't be surprised by the number of people that rely on the political ads for information but I find it a bit disappointing. I think that this explains why money is a factor in these races because the candidates with more money are the ones that get to communicate with the voters. I would have thought more people would check out some of the emerging online news sources like CTNewsJunkie or CTMirror but the audience for these still seems a bit limited.

Second, Chris Bigelow of the CTLocalPolitics fame has his pre-primary predictions. She calls it for Malloy by a hair and then Foley and McMahon. I agree with Bigelow that in the Malloy-Lamont race the ground game will be key. I also have to agree that Foley and McMahon win be respectable margins. I just don't see Fedele with the momentum and I don't believe that Schiff's political views are mainstream enough for him to appeal outside his strong libertarian base.

Finally I wanted to point out Colin McEnroe's column about why we vote in August. He raises some good points and I think that there is merit to changing the system so that instead of the current challenge primary we have something that more closely resembles the national system and we hold such a primary in May or June. People keep telling me they are sick of the ads and contacts but honestly I think they're just sick of the saturation. I think providing a timeline where the candidates and campaigns are able to engage in more meaningful conversation and connections with voters and activists instead of trying to blitz mailboxes, TV, radio, and phone lines over a few weeks will make for a much more comfortable process.