Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

 Outside O’Rourke’s Diner in Middletown, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley of Greenwich said he hoped to have “at last three” debates with Malloy, his Democratic counterpart.

 Asked how he would win unaffiliated voters, Foley said they have the same economic issues as Democrats and Republicans. He said that if voters had perceived him as an “elitist,” he would not have won the primary.

 “The voters are smart,” Foley said. “They don’t necessarily just listen to what an opponent is saying. They develop their own perceptions of candidates from what candidates are saying.”

 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dannel Malloy’s first executive order would be to change the way the state keeps track of its finances, finally shifting over the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that could paint an even bleaker picture than the $3.5-billion deficit in the $19-billion budget that would begin on July 1 next year.

 “If when everything is said and done we win the independents by 10 percent, you’re looking at the next governor,” Malloy said. “Ninety percent of Republicans are going to vote for a Republican candidate. Eighty percent of Democrats are going to vote for a Democratic candidate. We’ll fight over the independents and win on November 2.”

In 2006, Michael Fedele was persuaded by Gov. Jodi Rell to end his political retirement and run as her lieutenant governor. For about four years, he was a loyal second banana, running the Senate, sitting in on budget meetings and keeping his mouth shut and letting his multi-million-dollar information technology company run itself. When the chance came to bestow a little loyalty of her own on Fedele, when she announced last year she would not run for re-election, Fedele thought her endorsement was coming. But it never happened. That endorsement would surely have been enough for Fedele to overcome Tom Foley’s 3-pt primary victory Tuesday night. But the Blogster thinks Foley won the GOP gubernatorial nomination when Foley slapped him with that court suit over the CEP public-campaign-funding cash. That week wasted in court was a week Fedele could have had those attack ads against Foley on TV.

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.

After his victory speech, Dan Malloy told reporters that if he wins the election November 2, he’ll immediately bring state officials and employees together to talk about possible solutions.

“We’re going to straighten this state out. That’s what this campaign has been about so far,” he said. “It’s what the next 13 weeks will be about. It’s what the next four years will be all about.”

 Asked about the financial landscape, in which he will be up against Tom Foley, the private investor from Greenwich who is the GOP candidate, Malloy joked that $2.5 million was enough to defeat Lamont, who spent about $10 million.

 Under the current terms of public financing, which could be revised Friday when the state House meets to possibly override Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s recent veto and raise the total available grant, Malloy will be eligible for another $6 million to run the campaign to November.

 “I would hope there are a substantial number of people who believe that we should have fair footing,” Malloy said.

 He recalled that as a child, his mother organized Stamford area nurses into a union and the lessons of union strength were not lost on him. Malloy said that one of the differences this year, compared to his losing primary in 2006, was added labor support.

 “I understand the importance that labor plays in that relationship,” he said. “But I have also been very clear that everyone will be invited to the table. I will anticipate that everyone comes to the table prepared to help us straighten this state out. We’re not going to do it on the backs of any one group. We’re going to do the things that we need to get done and do it in an orderly fashion.”

Malloy said he broke even with Lamont in the cities, despite the Lamont endorsements from top-level local Democrats, because of past relationships with Democrats in those cities. He pointed out that he won the May party convention by two-to-one.

 “I always felt that we had substantial support in New Haven,” he said. “I always felt that we had substantial support in Bridgeport. We knew we had tons of support in Waterbury. I was kind of confident about Stamford. Felt good about Norwalk.”

 Asked to explain the difference between Lamont’s traditionally funded campaign and his, Malloy quipped: “He’s rich and I’m not. Listen I felt that we were getting our message out. Once we were able to go on TV, which is, as you know, one of the mediums that you communicate with people, that we would start to close this. We were very, very disciplined about our message, about how we got it out to people. We understood what we were up against. We marshaled our resources. We didn’t waste a dime and that is the kind of administration I intend to run as governor.”

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The Blogster, in the scrum of reporters and photographers after Dan Malloy’s victory speech: “So are you going to offer Mike Fedele a deal on his Tom Foley ads?”

Malloy: “You’re going to get me in trouble. Ah…ah…ah…I don’t know how to reply to that. I think that there is a distinct difference between the Republican Party and its approach to state government. Let’s be very clear that the Republicans have more or less run the governor’s office for a generation and clearly the people of Connecticut want change. I am the change agent. That’s why we won this substantial victory tonight. The Democrats have made that choice. I believe that we’re going to win in November.”

Dan Malloy, the underdog former Stamford mayor and newly minted Democratic gubernatorial candidate, is live on the 11 p.m. news, surrounded by sweaty supporters…

In the machine count