Stefanowski Lands a Direct Hit on Lamont, Abortion, and the Family Fortune.
Republican nominee for governor Bob Stefanowski is the rare Northeast Republican who has turned abortion to his advantage in a campaign ad. The Madison Republican released an ad Friday with a theme that surpasses party loyalties and ideology: that ol’ devil hypocrisy.
Stefanowski’s 40-second ad highlights Democratic Governor Ned Lamont’s invitations to businesses in states banning abortion to move to Connecticut. A stinging payoff follows the surprising setup. It’s last November’s video clip of a petulant Lamont announcing his wife, venture capitalist Ann Huntress Lamont, is in Nashville setting up new businesses because Connecticut is so complicated to do business in. The spontaneous confession by a wounded Lamont that his wife has deemed her husband’s leadership a failure retains its power to perplex the viewer.
Nashville is a city in Tennessee. Tennessee is notable for more than attracting Lamont millions in investments. It’s also one of the states that bans abortions in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. It’s a state, Stefanowski’s female narrator announces, “where a new law will prosecute doctors who perform abortions and jail women who get them.” A state, Lamont believes, no one who supports a woman’s right to determine her own reproductive healthcare would want to invest in.
With four months until voters again decide between Stefanowski and Lamont for governor, let us stipulate to a few facts. Neither Stefanowski nor Lamont is a naturally gifted politician. Each is more weathervane than signpost. Both have risen to the top tier of state politics because they are rich and willing to spend their fortunes on their own political ambition. When campaign consultants create a moment that makes one of them appear clever and the other craven, it is worth pausing and examining it.
The Lamonts are undoubtedly spending Friday night at the kitchen table in one of their homes in Manhattan or Greenwich, or on the island in Maine, sifting through their vast portfolio of investments and placing sell orders for stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments they own in companies headquartered in states that restrict or ban abortions. A camera crew will record their transformation of convictions into action, the video suitable for ads of their own. Or they will recreate the scene later with flattering lighting, appropriate makeup, and a script.
Nothing the Greenwich aristocrat does will heal the self-inflicted wound of his November 2021 announcement that Connecticut is such a hard place to do business that his wildly successful capitalist spouse has broken camp and headed to Tennessee to add to their fortune. It remains the great gift that Lamont gave Stefanowski in this dreary rematch. The challenge for Stefanowski is to highlight it in ways that make it seem fresh and revealing. Today he did.
Prepare for a ferocious air assault by Lamont on Stefanowski to change the subject.
Published July 8, 2022.