House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, said Tom Foley of Greenwich called him to talk about Foley’s considering running for Governor instead of U.S. Senate.
Cafero earlier this year launched an exploratory committee for an unspecified statewide office in 2010. Now that Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has decided not to seek re-election, Cafero is weighing pursuing his party’s nomination for the job.
And he had some advice for Foley about suddenly shifting his focus from Washington D.C. to the Governor’s mansion.
“I said ‘you’re free to do whatever you’d like, but know this – It is a very different race. This is not just a matter of changing your sign, scratching out SENATOR and putting FOR GOVERNOR. The offices are very different. One is federal, the other’s state. One is the legislative branch, the other’s the executive branch. The issues, though parallel, are different’,” Cafero recalled.
Cafero said he will make his own intentions known before year’s end.
UPDATE: It’s “Black Friday” and I just got off of the phone with Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, who has announced his intention to seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination and plans to officially launch his candidacy in the coming weeks.
I asked Fedele about Foley.
“I haven’t given it much thought,” he said. “Every day I’m reading about somebody else is running for Governor … My sense is we’ve got a good message to put out there … I’m not too concerned about Mr. Foley or anybody else coming into it.”
