Foley Campaign Shows Signs of Amateur Hour: No Day-After Strategy?

Reporters had to call Tom Foley’s campaign today for the obligatory morning-after stories. Why? Because in their first-time-around lack of political sense, the Foley folks scheduled nothing public. Whoa. And then when something was arranged, the “public event” was built around a previously scheduled lunch with a New York Times stringer at O’Rourke’s Diner in Middletown. So Connecticut reporters, who have actually covered the gubernatorial campaign for months, were told that the GOP candidate would go into the little diner, talk with lunchers for photo ops, then come out and take questions. But no, reporters were kept on the sidewalk for a half hour, under the blistering sun, waiting for Foley to first press the flesh with voters (that’s fine) and then to have a little nosh with the Times stringer (not so fine). That’s not a way to build rapport with the people who’ll be covering the campaign for the next 13 weeks.