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Paul Hicks III, executive vice president of communications and government relations for the National Football League, tells Hearst Connecticut Newspapers that the proposition of London hosting a future Super Bowl is not out of the question.

“It’s possible, but there’s so many cities in the U.S. that are qualified, that have the proper facilies and that have a fanbase,” Hicks said. “It would really take a pretty serious effort to do that. It’s possible. I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but it’s possible.”

A one-time aide to Lowell Weicker Jr. and chief of staff of the late Congressman Stewart McKinney, Hicks served as a selectman of Greenwich from 1987 to 1991.

The longtime town resident shared his insights on the state of the NFL during an extended interview Tuesday at his Park Avenue office.

You can read the full interview on Super Bowl Sunday in Hearst Connecticut Newspapers.

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Chris Meek, a Republican candidate in Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District, says his 4th quarter fundraising report will show a total of $230,000 raised.

Meek, one of two declared Republicans hoping to unseat Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, says the report shows his candidacy is attracting strong support. He noted in a statement that he has received endorsements from former Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele and from state Reps. Livvy Floren, Terrie Wood and Mike Malgano.

Meek is a former Goldman Sachs trader who rose to prominence after starting an initiative to assist homeowners threatened with foreclosure.

His Republican opponent is Steve Obsitnik of Westport, a CEO of a wireless infrastructure company. Obsitnik last week announced he raised more than $250,000 in the last campaign finance reporting period, which ended on Dec. 31. He has earned a number of endorsements from Westport officials, including Selectman Charles Haberstroh, Board of Finance Chairman Avi Kaner and former state Rep. Jo Fuchs.

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State Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, raised $160,000 in the last quarter of 2011 and has roughly $300,000 cash-on-hand, according to a statement from his campaign for U.S. Senate.

For those keeping track, ex-Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who also wants the nomination, announced this week that her Senate campaign raised “over $273,000 and has cash on hand of about $890,000.”

And earlier this month U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy announced he had raised $720,000 in the 4th quarter.

Tong’s campaign manager continued to try to use his candidate’s underdog status to his advantage:

“Our campaign is an underdog’s campaign and that is exactly what our state needs right now.  Our strategy isn’t to out raise Washington’s candidate.  We aren’t interested in funding our campaign with Wall Street and Washington PAC money.  Our plan is to have the resources necessary to run a very aggressive ground operation and peak at the right time,” said campaign manager, Marc Bradley.

Bradley doesn’t mention Murphy by name, but the “Wall Street” comment echoes accusations Bysiewicz has been leveling at the perceived frontrunner.

To be fair, I just flipped through Tong’s prior financial disclosures yesterday and there were $1,000 and $2,500 donations from folks who perhaps don’t all work directly on Wall Street, but are employed by major players in the financial services industry in Stamford, New York and elsewhere - UBS, Trilogy Capital, Oak Investment Partners, Goldman, Sachs & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Freepoint Commodities, Aladdin Capital, PSQ Capital, Citigroup and Lubben Capital.

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You just know politicians are dying to figure out how they can turn the Grote & Weigel sausage company closing to their advantage during this election year where the focus is on jobs/the economy.

So which local pol or congressional candidate is going to be the first to let the dogs out, so to speak?

R.I.P delicious hot dogs

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Those of us who spend election years sifting through candidates’ campaign finance reports know that special thrill of stumbling over celebrity, semi-celebrity and/or pseudo-celebrity donors.

Here are some discoveries I made this afternoon…

Saturday Night Live alum Jane Curtin of Sharon gave a small amount – $250 – of her Conehead cash to Democratic state House Speaker Chris Donovan’s bid to represent the 5th Congressional District.

Forensic expert Dr. Henry Lee of Branford was far more generous to state Rep. William Tong, donating a total of $5,000 to the Stamford Democrat’s campaign for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination.

And Robert Gallo, owner of E & J Gallo Winery in California, sent a $500 check to Liz Esty, the ex-state legislator who is competing with Donovan for the 5th District nomination.

One semi-celebrity who has helped Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon in the past is absent from less involved in her most recent campaign filing … Linda McMahon.

McMahon used the wealth her family accumulated through its Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment empire (that’s husband and occasional WWE performer Vince whose hair’s getting yanked) to fund her $50 million Senate run in 2010. McMahon is trying to do more fundraising this time around…

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January 30, 2012

Linda McMahon’s campaign for US Senate today announced raising $326,646 from 1,085 new donors in the fourth quarter of 2011. More than 80 percent of the contributions to the campaign came from Connecticut residents.
 
The 1,085 individual donors have joined Team Linda as part of a strategic grassroots effort to reach voters across Connecticut.

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WWE (formerly World Wrestling Entertainment) is inducting Iron Mike Tyson in its 2012 Hall of Fame class, an honor that will be bestowed upon the former heavyweight boxing champ-turned-Hangover star during WrestleMania XXVIII in Miami at the end of March.

The Stamford-based wrestling conglomerate ballyhooed Tyson’s selection today on its website.

No word yet on whether two-time Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Linda McMahon, the company’s former chief executive officer and wife of WWE impresario Vince McMahon, plans to take take off from the campaign trail to attend what is the Super Bowl of wrestling.

Perhaps the more burning question is whether former Congressman Christopher Shays, McMahon’s chief competitor for the GOP Senate nomination, will try to make political hay out of Tyson’s association with the WWE.

In an interview with Hearst Connecticut Newspapers earlier this month, Shays had this to say about his looming primary tete-a-tete with McMahon, the GOP’s 2010 nominee for U.S. Senate in a race won by Democrat Richard Blumenthal.

“I’m going to be taking some punches but all it will do is toughen me up for winning the general election,” Shays said.

Will Shays now be channeling his inner Zach Galifianakis?