Former Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele did not rule out a run for U.S. Senate in 2012 or even another try for governor in 2014 in an interview that aired today on WFSB’s “Face the State.” But much of conversation focused on his relationship with former Gov. M. Jodi Rell and her chief of staff, Lisa Moody.
Fedele made no attempt to hide his disappointment in Rell withholding her endorsement in his close race with the winner of the GOP primary, Tom Foley. With it, Fedele said, he could be governor today. Host Dennis House asked if he was angry at the slight.
“I am not angry. That’s not a term that I used,” Fedele said. “I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed at people I put my faith in.”
He did not deny his relationship with Moody was rocky.
“There’s no top secret I was not her favorite person,” Fedele said, then he made a dig about the low-digit plates handed out to Rell’s inner circle. “I clearly didn’t get a phone call for a license plate.”
Fedele said he had no idea why Rell, whom he thought had privately indidcated an endorsement was forthcoming, ultimately sat out the race.
“Maybe some day she ll tell you,” Fedele told House.
House pressed him to diss Rell over the fiscal mess she and the Democratic legislature left for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Fedele said he would have done things differently, but he did not directly answer when House asked if agreed with a newspaper editorial that called her derelict.
“I think there are lot of things that could have been done differently,” Fedele said.
Interviewed in a separate segment, Malloy broke no news defending his budget proposal, other than a mild prediction that Democrats would not hold onto all nine legislative seats that are up Tuesday in special elections.
“I think we’ll probably lose some seats. We’ll win some seats,” Malloy said.
Six of the vacancies are caused by lawmakers who resigned to join his administration.
As for whether his tough medicine of higher taxes and deep labor concessions might make him a one-term governor, Malloy said, “We’ll have that conversation at the end of 2012, not the beginning of 2011.”