Gubernatorial Chats

Former General Assembly Speaker James Amann came to the Meriden Democratic Town Committee this past week to discuss his candidacy for Governor. He is the only declared candidate so far, but Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and Stamford Mayor Dann Malloy are only a press conference away from joining officially. Unofficially they've been off and running.

The meeting was attended by a reasonably good crowd of town committee members, elected officials from the City Council and BOE (the state delegation is busy in session), several Teamsters there to support Jim, and a few other interested parties.

Jim gave a brief history of his knowledge of Meriden (no better or worse than other politicians outside our city) and a nod to the fact that we're the home of a past Majority Leader (Tom Luby) and his current successor as Speaker, Chris Donovan. After giving his pitch on becoming governor, he took questions. I say took, because instead of directly answering most of them, he recounted the history of why some of the issues were so important: jobs, educational funding, avoiding the divisiveness of primaries, release of approved bonding monies. All were important to the attendees, and while Jim clearly had a command of the facts, he shared little of what he would do if elected governor. It may be because it's too early in the game to get pinned down, but it will be interesting to see how his competitors will answer those questions when they come to town. Susan Bysiewicz is up to bat next month.