The Blogster is a professional and has speculated several times in different ways (heads she runs, tails she doesn’t) about whether Gov. Jodi Rell would seek re-election. Most recently it swung back to Rell running, if only to save face for an administration that auditors are investigating for possible campaign-finance violations through unreported in-kind contributions from the advice of UConn professor Ken Dautrich.
But hey, it’s only politics. In truth, the Blogster wishes John “Why Should I Resign If I’ve Done Nothing Wrong?” Rowland were still in office, so the Capitol Press Corps could continue to hound him. In reality, Rell relieved the pressure today and announced she wasn’t seeking re-election. We still have 14 months of her administration. It’s going to be very very ugly in the land of budget crafting. Whoever is the next governor (say Jim Amann, who could be the last Democrat standing, then could middle-of-the-road his way to the Governor’s Residence and become the next Bill O’Neill, who left Lowell P. Weicker with the largest budget – then – in state history) will need a lot of luck and some solid economic recovery.
The one thing that Rell received and may never, ever be matched, was that 83-percent approval rating in the January, 2005 Q Poll. Finally, after the recent report that the Quinnipiac Polling Institute has historically slipped the results of polls to prinicpals such as Jodi Rell the day before their official release, it seems humorously appropriate that Rell made her declaration today, right after the Q Poll announced that it was releasing a new survey of the 2010 governor’s race on Tuesday.
