Lamont Shows His Claws on Twitter: “PayDay Bob is the face of shady business and corruption.”
Governor Ned Lamont may doubt his own polls. The Greenwich Democrat’s internal polls, Daily Ructions has learned, find him enjoying a wide lead over Republican Bob Stefanowski in their rematch. Lamont’s Thursday tweet from his campaign account, posted above, was unusually harsh.
Lamont has spent millions from his fourth generation family fortune cultivating an image as a nice guy in touch with everyday life. (The frequent use of the word “folks” is often a sign of a public plutocrat straining to seem ordinary.) It’s unusual for Nasty Ned to show his public face.
Stefanowski may have prompted Lamont’s disproportionate response by highlighting the federal criminal investigation of the State Pier project in New London and its escalating costs. Stefanowski called the increasing price tag of for the redevelopment of the State pier into “a state-of-the-art heavy-lift capable port facility” part of a “corruption tax” that the Madison Republican intends to talk more about in the final two months of the campaign.
The cost of the New London project has increased from $93 million to $255 million with little more than shrugs from state officials. The Day’s David Collins reported recently that federal law enforcement authorities have subpoenaed six years of Connecticut Port Authority records. The port authority has been a persistent headache for Lamont. He appointed his then-deputy budget director, Kostantinos Diamantis, to oversee the project in 2019. It was, Lamont declared, “up to Kosta to deliver the goods.” Diamantis, whose name Lamont will not say, departed from the administration last October. Federal criminal law enforcement authorities have also sought documents related to him.
Lamont now and then allows his penchant for displays of petulance slip into public view. The abandonment of discipline is never good. A governor confident in his record and the campaign he’s running this year, does not need to revive the “PayDay Bob” theme from 2018. Ned Lamont is not built to complain about how other people made their money. This is the provenance of surrogates and mouthpieces.
Stefanowski made his fortune made his fortune in the grimy world of payday loans. We know that. It’s one reason Lamont won a 3% victory over Stefanowski on his third try for statewide office. It’s imprudent of Lamont to invite the origins of his and Stefanowski’s wealth to occupy the campaign’s centerstage. The founder of the Lamont family fortune, Thomas Lamont, was a world famous financier who bankrolled Benito Mussolini’s fascist government. Thomas Lamont, according to acclaimed historian Ron Chernow, was Mussolini’s “accomplice.” Lamont, Chernow discovered in his research, advised “Benito Mussolini to liken his invasion of Ethiopia to the heartwarming settlement of the American West.”
This seems like an imprudent path for Lamont to trod. Scrutiny of the accumulation of great wealth always tells a tale the beneficiaries of a fortune would rather remain vague. It’s not how Thomas Lamont’s most notable descendant should want to spend the next 10 weeks.
Published August 26, 2022.