Back when boxing – and politicians, for that matter – had some sort of legitimacy in the eyes of the general sporting public, there were weighing-in ceremonies in which the size of fists, length of reaches, heights and waists were compared in the “tale of the tape.”
The Blogster recently interviewed the campaign managers for the two major gubernatorial candidates: Republican Tom Foley and Democrat Dannel Malloy.
Foley’s manager is Justin Clark, 35, a graduate of Wesleyan University and the UConn Law School.
An attorney since 2004, Clark clerked for state Supreme Court Associate Justice Peter Zarella and then joined the Hartford firm of Pepe & Hazard.
Clark lives in West Hartford with his wife and three kids. He has been active in Republican state politics since 2006 and was an early supporter of Foley’s U.S. Senate race, which shifted over to governor when Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced in December she would not seek re-election.
“The biggest task for a campaign manager is making sure the campaign and all its parts running smoothly,” Clark said. “Policy, communications, the political and field program; everything’s on the right track.”
Dan Kelly, 31, Malloy’s manager graduated, with a political science degree from the University of Minnesota.
He worked for the smoke-free coalition in Minnesota, then for U.S. Rep. Jim Davis in Florida, before getting a job with the Wisconsin Democratic Party. He also worked for the Virginia coordinated campaign. More recently Kelly managed the governor’s race for a Pennsylvanian, who dropped out, but who knew Malloy.
“I talked with Dan in late-December, early January,” said Kelly, who says it seems as if four or five election deadlines have already been surmounted, including the support needed to win the party convention in May and the crucial $250,000 collected in small contributions to qualify for the voluntary public-funding program.
“It has been in six-week to two-month sprints,” Kelly said. “The staff here, our volunteers, have been through a couple battles right now,” Kelly said.
