Gov. Dannel P. Malloy this afternoon rejected criticism from House Minority Leader Larry Cafero on the budget deficit that’s pumping up like a balloon at a Thanksgiving Day parade. “Representative Cafero has expressed his desire to become the governor of the state of Connecticut,” Malloy told reporters in the Capitol. “I think you folks are going to have to get used to putting everything into context and I’m sure that will appear in your papers every time you report what he has to say. Having said that, he’s wrong. I don’t know how else to say it.”
Cafero, a few hours later, in a phone interview in which he quoted a President Lyndon B. Johnson line about one’s inability to shine a particular substance: “I’m still taking down campaign signs from last week’s election and he’s saying I’m running in 2014. Isn’t it fair to say he’s expressed a desire to run for re-election? He’s been very clear. He wants to put his remarks in the best light. Everything he ran on, everything he declared in that authoritative ‘don’t-question-me’ manner has gone wrong.”