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Political observers speculated Joshua Nassi, Chris Donovan’s ex-congressional campaign manager/confidante, was an unidentified co-conspirator referenced in the federal affidavit released last week following the arrest of Donovan’s finance director.

The affidavit identified one co-conspirator as a male Donovan campaign aide. Donovan, following Robert Braddock Jr.’s arrest for allegedly concealing the source of campaign donations, fired two other campaign workers – Nassi and Deputy Finance Director Sarah Waterfall.

 Donovan (left) and Nassi in better times.

The Hartford Courant today put an end to the speculation and officially named Nassi as an alleged co-conspirator. 

For those who are interested in connections and ironies, here are a few to ponder…

Nassi has hired Bill Bloss of Bridgeport-based Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder.

That means Bloss, who has so far donated $3,000 to Donovan’s congressional bid, is representing one of the people allegedly involved in a scandal that jeopardizes Donovan’s political future.

From the Federal Election Commission:

Also Bloss has, according to his profile, done legal work for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group. Donovan and Nassi at one point in their careers worked for CCAG, and Nassi’s replacement in the Donovan campaign – Tom Swan – is the group’s executive director.

Here’s the relevant paragraph from Bloss’ bio: ”Bill represented Common Cause and Connecticut Citizen Action Group in federal litigation that led to the overhaul of the state primary election system.”

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If only Christopher Shays had Don Draper on speed dial.

The former congressman, who has marketed himself as the most electable Republican running for Senate, will undoubtedly have to tweak his advertising campaign.

Check out the screen capture above, which was taken from the high traffic news aggregating website CT Capitol Report Wednesday morning a short time after the latest Quinnipiac Poll dropped.

The banner ad references a March Q-poll showing Shays in a statistical dead heat with Democrat Chris Murphy.

Doh.

Shays now trails Murphy by 8 points.

What’s worse is the same poll showed Republican Linda McMahon effectively wiping out a 15-point deficit against Murphy and beating Shays by 29 points.

Much of Shays’ advertising strategy has hinged on the March poll.

UPDATE:

The Shays campaign retired the ad not too long after the latest Q-poll numbers went viral.

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As he works to salvage his 5th District congressional campaign and reputation, state House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, might want to seriously consider borrowing his campaign manager’s baby for all public appearances.

Fifteen-month-old Mirae, daughter of progressive activist/lobbyist Tom Swan and his wife, union worker Suzanne Haviland, has made occasional appearances at the Capitol.

Now that Swan has taken over running Donovan’s campaign in the midst of a federal probe, Mirae is sure to be a familiar face along the campaign trail. Swan brought her to a pro-Donovan labor rally in Hartford Wednesday.

Photo by Mark Pazniokas/Connecticut Mirror

And despite her liberal genes, Mirae’s charms work in non-partisan ways. Ask state Sen. Andrew Roraback, R-Goshen.

I recently spoke with Roraback, the GOP-endorsed candidate for the 5th District, about Swan’s job with the Donovan campaign.

“I think certainly Tom agreeing to take on this role signals his faith in Chris,” Roraback said, adding out-of-the-blue, “He does have the cutest little daughter you’ve ever seen.”

“She was the cutest little peanut I’ve ever seen,” Roraback said. “When he did say he was giving up his little girl to do that (work for Donovan), he is giving up something special.”