Full marks to the Augie Wolf U.S. Senate campaign for stealing a march on prospective Republican nomination rival Larry Kudlow. The Wolf campaign owns a fistful of Kudlow for Senate domain names. It is the sort of thing a nimble campaign learns to do when it has little money. The Wolf campaign is running on fumes. Wolf may be a 20th century Olympic competitor, but he’s not beating any records in fundraising.

Time to put down the shot and pick of the phone for fundraising calls, Augie.

Popular Republican Jodi Latina will leave the Senate Republican office later this month to become chief of staff to New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart. Latina is a former reporter who first worked in politics on Linda McMahon’s 2010 U.S. Senate race.

Latina was elected to Wethersfield’s board of education in 2013. This week she claim a seat on the town council.

Latina replaces John Healey, the Farmington Republican who made a memorable appearance in an FBI video played at the 2013 trial of a Democratic campaign operative.

Republican Clay Cope wins third term as Sherman’s first selectman. Keep an eye on him for higher office.

It’s official The universally admired Pat Llodra has been re-elected first selectman of Newtown. The Republican ran unopposed for a two-year term.

Wolcott Republicans this weekend are trying to make Tuesday’s municipal about something more than local issues. They are giving voters a chance to send a message to Democratic Governor Dannel P. Malloy and his local buddy, on-again, off-again Democrat Bobby Ficeto.

Full marks to Wolcott Republican town council member Gail Mastrofrancesco for creating the mailer that’s hitting

Ficeto is a rich target. He’s a devoted Malloy acolyte (the governor made his wife–who is not a Democrat a judge). There was this affectionate recounting of the Ficeto-Malloy romance that started in 2006 in the Connecticut Post in 2011:

It’s years later now, but Malloy is not about to forget that Robert Ficeto and Shawn Wooden and so many others had been among those who pushed and begged and wheedled to get him those convention votes. They were Malloy guys. He was going to take their meetings, and he was going to hear them out, never mind that Roy and others thought they were nothing but trouble.

“Ro-bert Feh ceee toh.”

The governor does a wicked impersonation of the man’s voicemail message. It’s all the other messages that are the problem.

This is how Roy Occhiogrosso comes to find out that Robert Ficeto has been negotiating with the Boston Red Sox, trying to squeeze out of them a few more tickets for the official party for “Connecticut Day” at Fenway. After all, Ficeto’s going to rent a bus. Lotsa people going to be coming along, going to be a highly selective invite: Catch a ballgame with the governor, on Connecticut Day!

Someone catches wind of this — the poor, perplexed Boston Red Sox staffer keeps placing calls to the official scheduler. It seems a Mr. Ficeto, who says he represents the governor, is demanding a bus — and Roy goes bananas. Why can’t Malloy see how bad this could look? Some guy from Waterbury, claiming to call on his behalf, trying to shake down the Red Sox for extra baseball tickets? He can see the Kevin Rennie blog post, the Jon Lender column about it in The Courant.

Dan Malloy hears Roy out on this stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he doesn’t catch fire as Roy does. He’s used to this; it’s just a goofy guy who lives to please you, and besides, he’s been good to us.

Ficeto’s been good to Malloy and Malloy’s been very good to the Ficetos. Wolcott Republicans are giving one town the chance to send a message.

Democrat Luke Bronin spent more $872,625 to garner 5,110 votes in his September 16th primary victory over incumbent Pedro Segarra in their race for mayor of one of the state’s poorest communities, according to campaign finance reports. That’s $170.76 a vote, a figure that will evoke howls of protest from the traditional voices of campaign spending restraint. Those voices were curiously muted as Bronin rolled over Segarra in their showdown.

Bronin’s last campaign finance report before the primary showed the Greenwich plutocrat spent $673,821.75. That reporting period included expenses from July 1st through September 7th. Bronin’s post-primary report shows an additional $198,804 in payments made up to and including primary day.  It includes more than 100 payments of $125 for primary day field work. The largest expense was a $53,224.77 payment for commercial broadcast time.

Since clinching his primary win, Bronin has continued an avaricious fundraising effort in the face of token opposition. A new age is upon Hartford. The early going reveals that many will reshape their long-held beliefs to curry favor with the Bronins as dissent takes a sabbatical.

This year’s astonishing contest for mayor in Bridgeport may turn on a bad ol’ habit of Democratic primary winner Joseph Ganim. Since the felonious former mayor saw off erratic incumbent Bill Finch (who made only bad decisions) in September’s contest, observers and participants of the city’s tumultuous politics detected distinct signs of hubris emerging from the Ganim campaign.

Ganim’s lieutenants think they have the November match with Mary-Jane Foster won. All that’s left is to march on the city hall and measure for curtains. Ganim will want to stay away from expensive carpeting, which caused him so much grief in his corruption trial. Foster finished a distant third in the Democratic primary, but is hoping a wave of revulsion at the resurrection of Ganim and his sharp-elbowed crew will carry her to victory. Watch for Foster’s record in business, one of her few calling cards in the race, to become a target.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s baffling Medicaid cuts are causing revelations, confusion, and strife throughout the state’s far-flung and complex healthcare system. ECHN head Peter Karl asked his friends last week at AFT (which represents some of the state’s unionized nurses) to condemn the cuts and their impact on Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville Hospital. An internal debate ensued.

Here’s the internal analysis provided by influential union lobbyist Jennifer Berigan  to AFT colleagues in a September 22nd email:

A call for a special legislative session to address Medicaid cuts. Hartford Hospital President and CEO Elliot Joseph’s letter to the useless Connecticut Hospital Association must have been a scorcher.

Here’s his angry letter to hospital corporators.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill issues a short statement on the fate of flailing Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch’s attempt to secure a spot on November’s ballot. Finch’s Job Creation Party appears unable to fulfill its purpose of saving Finch’s job in the aftermath of his defeat a week ago by felonious former mayor Joseph Ganim in the city’s Democratic primary.

Whoever was in charge of filing the appropriate forms Merrill’s office failed to do what the law requires in a big way. (The guessing game in state politics is who missed the deadlines for the Finch invention.)

Finch has been making noises about suing to win the Job Creation Party spot. Merrill said in a written statement “I have no comment on the potential litigation mentioned in a statement by the campaign of Mayor Bill Finch. My office does no comment on potential or pending litigation.” That isn’t true. When state Republicans sued Merrill over the party’s ballot position after the 2010 gubernatorial election, Merrill issued one of her meandering, stream of consciousness statements berating the Republicans and mewling about the burdens of her office.

What she may have meant to say yesterday about her friend Finch is that she does not comment on litigation when it may injure an ally.

Republicans won the ballot position lawsuit.