Forget the gloves – the last 10 minutest of Thursday night’s gubernatorial debate between Gov. Dan Malloy and Republican challenger Tom Foley looked more like a bare-knuckle brawl.
Both candidates threw jabs, even snuck in a sucker punch or two, and it looks like the voters at home were hit the hardest.
“It was different than Tuesday's debate, which was more about policy,” explained CTNewsJunkie’s Christine Stuart. “I think Thursday’s debate got a little personal.”
The discussion Thursday night at the University of Connecticut started with economic issues, but ended with Foley calling for a truce.
That call came almost an hour after Foley dropped a line about Malloy alluding to his time as Stamford mayor.
“He also was investigated for corruption while he was mayor of Stamford, and he leaves that out,” Foley said.
That investigation found no wrongdoing, but Stuart says it set the stage for the fight that followed.
“It hit a nerve and Malloy just unloaded all of Tom Foley’s indiscretions on him at that point,” said Stuart.
Malloy went after Foley over two car crashes, including an arrest in 1981 when Foley was accused of hitting parked cars in Southampton, New York. Foley has been arrested twice but not convicted.
“I’m not the person that got fined $16,000. I’m not the person who failed to disclose to the FBI that he got arrested," Malloy said. "I’m not the person who didn’t tell the full truth about incidents involving women in a car that you struck five different times at rates of speed going as fast as 50 mph.”
NBC Connecticut took it to the voters Friday for their reaction.
“They are getting a tired, a little cranky,” said Michael Dunne, of West Hartford, “almost as tired as I am of all the negative campaigning.”
According to the Wesleyan Media Project, this is the third most negative governor’s race in the country right now.
“The things that disappoints me is that both candidates are spending a huge amount of time on negative campaigning, giving us all the reasons why we should not vote for the other guy,” said Dunne. “What they are not telling us is why we should vote for him.”
