What’s the Lacoste of Tony Hwang?

Poor Tony Hwang. The thin-skinned veteran Republican is flailing himself into incoherence as scrutiny of his record continues to reach voters in the competitive 28th Senate District.

The Fairfield Republican continues to respond to criticism of his votes on gun control and women’s access to abortion services with buckshot but no specifics. He howls at each roll call revelation. Hwang preaches civility but in the crunch, he abandons it. On Monday, he accused his challenger,Fairfield Democrat Rob Blanchard, of spreading “misinformation and manipulated narrative” to voters in Bethel, Easton, Fairfield and Newtown. Hwang, as is his custom, provides no facts, only an odd demand that “apologies must be made.”

Those apologies should start with Hwang. He mewls about campaign spending on mailers criticizing him. If he did not spend thousands on apparel, golf tees and balls with logos over the years, Hwang might have been able to add substance to his campaigns. Or perhaps not.

Hwang’s dismay about how public funds are spent in a campaign is a new concern. In 2023, Hwang reimbursed himself $2,624.48 for mileage incurred after the election, according to his campaign finance report. They must be post-election miles because the expense did not appear under the “incurred but not paid” section of the previous campaign finance report in 2022. That would be more than 4,000 miles at the allowable IRS mileage reimbursement rate in the second half of 2022 between five days before the November 7th election and three days before Christmas, when Hwang’s campaign committee paid him.

And then there is the curious 2023 post-election expense of $4,000 to a web designer for redesign of a site as well as to post content and photo updates. That expenditure also does not appear in a pre-election report as incurred but not paid. Two months after the 2022 election, Hwang used taxpayer money to pay $6,000 for video taping and editing on January 11, 2023 for services, the report reveals, that were incurred during the entire campaign, but they appear nowhere else, a violation of long established campaign finance rules.

Hwang would have more money to address issues if year after year he did not spend thousands in public funds on shirts, embroidery and food. He does love his embroidered Lacoste clothes–until he started altering photos of them. Perhaps he and his campaign people learned how to do that in the photography class taxpayers paid for them to attend in a previous campaign.

And now with his outbursts of vague outrage, Hwang has taken up a different type of embroidery.

What’s the Lacoste of Tony Hwang? Very high indeed.

Published October 22, 2024.