Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy visited Fairfield on Monday, Oct. 27 for an informal lunch with the College Democrats, where he outlined his platform and his prior accomplishments during his time as governor.
In the lower level of the Barone Campus Center, Malloy discussed the upcoming election, jokingly saying, “I feel better than the stag up there feels, with respect to my chances,” referring to the taxidermied stag hung in the LLBCC.
President of College Democrats Riley Barrett ‘17 said, “We’ve been doing a lot of work to support his campaign; we’ve been doing a lot of phone banking and canvassing for him, so I think he wants to thank us for that.”
Malloy is up for reelection in November, running against Tom Foley, his opponent in the 2010 gubernatorial race where Malloy won by almost 6,400 votes.
According to the most recent Quinnipiac University Poll, the race is a statistical tie with 43 percent of voters supporting Malloy and 43 percent supporting Foley. Third-party write-in candidate Joe Visconti received seven percent of the vote.
“Fairfield’s a fairly republican campus so it’s really great to have [Malloy’s] presence here and to get the word out about what he has done,” Barrett said. “There are so many stereotypes of what a democrat would do or maybe what he has done or hasn’t done and not a lot of facts.”
She added, “It was great to hear him talk about trying to work with republicans and to bridge that gap and create compromise.”
In regards to the debates leading up to the race, Malloy said, “I think we’ve had some really good debates and I think there’s an appreciation that Mr. Foley and I are very different people and have a very different vision of what the future is about.”
With regards to his platform, Malloy stated that there is a need to make wise investments in private and public universities, transportation systems and cities and towns.
“I think we represent a very progressive agenda, which I’m very proud of,” said Malloy.
According to Barrett, College Democrats are most passionate and enthused about Malloy’s platforms regarding education and job creation, and believe in his efforts for Connecticut’s future.
“I think support of education, what we’ve done on education issues, should be appealing to students who are going to college in many cases because they came from great school systems and had caring teachers so I think that that’s part of it,” said Malloy.
“We have a very urban-centric platform as well that addresses urban areas increasingly,” Malloy added. “Students graduating from college want to live in a city or an urban environment so we have transportation addressed, we have job creation addressed, we have housing issues addressed.”
When asked why college students should vote for him, Malloy said, “I have a proven record of actually having seen jobs created. Tom Foley has a proven record of off-shoring jobs to Mexico, closing plants and facilities and bankrupting companies. Why the hell would you vote for him?”
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