Stamford's 2013 Slander and the Upcoming Debacle

I've lived in and around Stamford all my life, it's my home. I've lived in Stamford for a few years and had the opportunity to vote in the past two elections for Mayor. This most recent one, however, drove me nuts! I supported Michael Fedele for Mayor right from the beginning. Heck, I supported him back in 2010 when he was running for Governor, and I believed that over the other candidates, he was the best for the job. Then, either he, or his staff and advisers, torpedoed his campaign.

Attack ads don't work. When you tell me what the other guy did wrong, you're not telling me what you've done right, or what you will do. Fedele put Martin's name in front of me more in the last few weeks of his campaign than Martin did himself! I'm not sure if this is the textbook or just hotshots being plain dumb. Attack ads may have worked in the past, I don't know, but they do the exact opposite now, at least for me. Every attack that Fedele launched against Martin made me lean more towards Martin.

The same thing happened to this party 2012 when Linda McMahon took Chris Murphy on. I truly believed she was a different kind of politician until the last few weeks of her campaign when she whipped out the attack ads. Once again, in the last few weeks, with every attack ad she levied against Murphy, that actually sent me farther away from her. I heard about her ideas about as much as I heard about a pair of teacups at a garage sale (which for the record, was once in passing).

With the upcoming Gubernatorial race to decide who our next Governor and leader of the often cantankerous members in Connecticut's government will be, I'm actually even more worried than I have been before. During the 2010 Republican Primary campaign, our own party waged war against itself, and did the Democrats a favor. When Fedele went on the attack against Foley, that saved Malloy oodles of money. Foley was discredited by a member of his own party, and the election turned out to be one of the closest in state history.

I don't know who in my party I have to ask, but are we doomed to repeat this moronic cycle of bash our opponents and push our constituents away from us?