Hartford, CT – Tuesday night, while speaking to a Republican group in Middlebury, John McKinney made a strong case for Connecticut voters to NOT send a Republican back to the Governor’s office.  McKinney told the Middlebury Republican Town Committee, “As I said I have served in the Legislature for now eight terms, and I’ve seen the state go the wrong direction for a long time. But we always had a Republican governor, whether it was John Rowland or Jodi Rell, who described themselves as kind of the firewall, some of the craziest stuff didn’t happen, bad stuff happened, but the craziest stuff didn’t. Well, we’ve seen the crazy stuff all happen under three years under Governor Malloy.”

“John McKinney was finally honest about Republican governors creating the fiscal and economic mess that Governor Malloy inherited when he took office,” said Connecticut  Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo.  “John McKinney effectively made the case for NOT returning a Republican to the Governor’s office when he said that he watched the state go in the wrong direction during his many terms in office serving under Republican administrations.  Governor Malloy hasn’t done ‘crazy’ things; he’s done really smart things: erased a $3.7 billion deficit, overseen the creation of more than 40,000 private sector jobs, reduced the state’s debt, and forced the state to fully fund its obligations to name just a few of his and other Democrats’ accomplishments.  This isn’t ‘crazy’ stuff; it’s just that it looks ‘crazy’ to Senator McKinney because he spent so many years supporting the misguided policies put forward by Governors Rowland and Rell.”

DiNardo continued, “I think that’s the piece that’s the most interesting here: for most of the time Senator McKinney was in the Legislature, he served under Republican governors.  During that time he stayed mostly silent – not totally, but mostly– on the ‘crazy’ policies because they were being put forward by Republican governors.  Now that there’s a Democrat in the Governor’s office he’s found his voice?  Give me a break.”

01.14.2014 McKinney Middlebury RTC Repub Gov.wav

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