Jim Amann, the former House speaker who’s a candidate for governor, picked some low-hanging fruit Monday during a news conference blasting a Connecticut Voice for Children report on the tax credits for the film and digital-media industry. Afterwards, he spoke with a couple of reporters about his campaign. “I’m the only official candidate on both sides of the aisle; the one who has his headquarters open and functional. We’re getting 25-30 people coming in a night from all over the state. I got my first mailing out to the town committees. So far so good.”
Although he was a supporter of the landmark public-financing bill of 2005, he said an apparent shortcoming is the $350 contribution limit for people giving to “exploratory” committees like Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, as opposed to candidate committees like his, with $100 contribution limits. He has raised about $75,000. He said in some ways, it’s harder to spend money in the exploratory committee phase than it is raising the money.
“Every $3 they’re raising, I can only raise a dollar under the new law,” he said. But in the end, the $750,000 he needs to raise in small contributions may, he said, put him in better shape than his Democratic-primary opponents. “It’s alot of paperwork, but I think there are some really good aspects to it. I went to a Latino fundraiser in Waterbury. It was great. Maybe 60 to 80 people were there and these elderly women, Dominican, Puerto Rican, probably in their late 60s and early 70s, $5 and $10 contributions and to them, that meant alot to them. In many aspects of getting people involved in the old grassroots politics, it’s great.”