Greenwich packs the ballot

I thought I was making a joke in March when I asked, “What if Connecticut held an election this November and all the major candidates were from Greenwich?â€

But it’s beginning to look like more than a joke. In May, the party conventions endorsed two candidates for U.S. senator, Dick Blumenthal and Linda McMahon, and a Republican candidate for governor, Tom Foley, all of them from Greenwich. The only party-endorsed outsider for the two biggest offices is Dan Malloy from faraway Stamford.

Blumenthal, nominated by acclamation despite the recent unpleasantness over his military service, and McMahon, who scared off potential primary challenger Rob Simmons with her $50 million campaign treasury, are set, so the all-Greenwich race for the Senate is assured.

But there will be a gubernatorial primary in both parties and that’s where it gets complicated. If Foley resists challenges from Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele of Stamford or Simsbury businessman Oz Griebel, the third Greenwich place is also certain.

In the Democratic race for governor, though, Greenwich is counting on its own Ned Lamont, the challenger, to unseat party-endorsed candidate Malloy.

So, if Foley keeps the Republican endorsement through the August primary and Lamont takes the Democratic endorsement from Malloy, we will have an all-Greenwich field for U.S. senator and governor.

The late May Quinnipiac Poll shows Greenwich Republican Foley with 37 percent of the vote, followed by Fedele with 11 percent and Griebel at 5 percent, but 42 percent of the Republicans are undecided. The conventional wisdom says Foley, with the most money and therefore the most name recognition, will continue to dominate and become the official nominee in August.

In the Democratic gubernatorial race, the challenger is looking good and Malloy could do what he did four years ago and lose a primary challenge after winning the party endorsement. According to Quinnipiac, Lamont leads Malloy 41 to 24 with just 30 percent of Democrats undecided. The lower undecided vote is probably indicative of the name recognition the two picked up losing — Malloy in the 2006 gubernatorial primary to John DeStefano and Lamont in the 2006 three-way senatorial election to third-party candidate Joe Lieberman.

And so, if this particular, well-regarded poll holds up, we will have Blumenthal of Greenwich running against McMahon of Greenwich for senator and Foley of Greenwich running against Lamont of Greenwich for governor, just as if there weren’t 168 other towns in Connecticut.

All four are Greenwich millionaires and three of the four are using their own money to finance their elections. Only Blumenthal is doing it the old-fashioned way, using other people’s money and, for the first time in his career, money from the influence-seeking political action committees. The rest, to put it in the most unkindly light, are buying the offices with their own money. Only Malloy is using public campaign finance funds.

You could call the 2010 election the Greenwich Invitational, but you could also call it the best election money can buy.

Dick Ahles is a retired journalist from Simsbury. E-mail him at dahles@hotmail.com.