The running of the rich: Is wealth changing Connecticut politics? Is wealth changing state politics?

Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, posed in his Greenwich home, Monday, March 8th, 2010. Blumenthal will be running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the retirement of fellow Democrat Christopher Dodd. less Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, posed in his Greenwich home, Monday, March 8th, 2010. Blumenthal will be running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the retirement of fellow Democrat ... more Photo: Bob Luckey Photo: Bob Luckey Image 1 of / 21 Caption Close The running of the rich: Is wealth changing Connecticut politics? 1 / 21 Back to Gallery

Just look at the boats.

To appreciate the influx of wealth in the top political races in Connecticut, you have to go nautical. At first, you might be impressed with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Dannel Malloy's 28-foot powerboat or with Republican Senate candidate Rob Simmons's J-22 sailboat.

But they're humble dinghies next to the 47-foot "Sexy Bitch," the sports yacht that Republican Linda McMahon's husband docks in Boca Raton, Fla. They'd be swamped in the wake from "Odalisque," Republican Tom Foley's 100-foot ship flagged under the Republic of Marshall Islands and hailing from the port of Bikini. (Odalisque, if you must know, comes from the Turkish for a slave in a harem.)

The gap between rich candidate and not-so-rich candidate is enormous in Connecticut this year. To illustrate the great divide, you could easily choose real estate, watches or cars (say Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele's wife's 2007 Maseratti Quattroporte versus Danbury Republican Mark Boughton's 1993 Chevy pickup truck).

But what does it really mean? Do you now have to be rich to be successful in big-time Connecticut politics? And can these wealthy candidates identify with the problems of just-average voters, most of whom don't have any boats at all?

Hearst Connecticut Newspapers gave 11 of the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidates a questionnaire designed less to ascertain their wealth than to get some insights into how they use it. We wanted to know the cars they drive, how much they give to charity, where they vacation, what they spend on a haircut or business attire, where they like to go out and eat.

Most candidates gave us answers. For those who did not, we tried to provide information from publicly available records to offer some insight into the candidates' lifestyles.

The power of personal wealth

For the less well-endowed contenders, Campaign 2010 already has been an eye opener. They face the very likely prospect that their well-heeled opponents will use their personal wealth to finance a barrage of TV ads, hire the best consultants, conduct exhaustive opposition research and polls and fly in popular surrogates to impress voters.

McMahon already has made it clear she will tap millions of dollars from her family's wealth -- disclosure reports show her family's assets could be as high as $335 million -- in her bid to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd. The leading candidate on the Democratic side, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, has a family fortune of his own to write checks on. Ditto for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont, the man who dumped an estimated $17 million of his own money into a just-missed U.S. Senate race four years ago, and for Tom Foley, the businessman and GOP fundraiser extraordinaire who also wants to be the governor.

Democratic Senate hopeful Rudy Marconi, who has the least income of all the candidates who responded to the Hearst survey, noted glumly that the wealthy candidates get taken more seriously just by being wealthy. Those in the rest of the field, he said, "get 15 minutes, a handshake and a cup of coffee."

MONEY vs. experience

But hold on a minute. The last two governors, Republicans M. Jodi Rell and John Rowland, were not politicians of great wealth. Nor is the retiring Dodd, whose net worth of up to $1.85 million in his last disclosure filing puts him in the back of the pack of Senate millionaires.

Dodd, Rell and Rowland worked their way up through the political system, winning lower-level electoral seats in the state Legislature or Congress before convincing voters to give them the big prize.

These days, McMahon, Foley and Lamont undoubtedly can be emboldened by the success wealthy political neophytes have had in winning elections, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Jon Corzine, the former New Jersey governor.

Scott McLean, professor of political science at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, said that for a variety of reasons, rich, untested candidates could have an edge this year.

Voters, angry at the state's stagnant economy, may be willing to accept inexperienced, well-funded outsiders, he said.

"People don't like career politicians anymore," McLean said. "Experience seems almost a disqualification."

The less-affluent candidates always can take to heart the lesson of John Connolly. The former governor of Texas who bolted parties to run for president as a Republican in 1980 was seen as a formidable and well-financed candidate by pundits from coast to coast. Well-financed Connolly undoubtedly was, but his $11 million in spending earned him a grand total of one GOP delegate to the party's national convention.

Connecting with voters

Neither party has a monopoly on wealthy candidates in Connecticut this year. Affluence doesn't seem to have a particular ideological bent, either. Certainly the views of Democratic millionaires Blumenthal and Lamont and GOP millionaires Foley and McMahon are oceans apart on the economy, health care and financial regulation.

The more important issue for voters might be whether Connecticut's crop of millionaire contenders have the leadership skills and the ideas that can make a difference in the their lives. And candidates, while making their issue pitches, also are portraying themselves as people who understand those common problems.

For instance, McMahon's TV commercials stress how she and her husband came back from financial calamity and understand what hard times are like.

Woe to the candidate who fails to see how even a momentary portrayal of being out of touch can ricochet through a campaign. George H.W. Bush's alleged unfamiliarity with checkout scanners -- a claim that was flatly erroneous -- branded him as above the struggles of his constituents. And Mario Cuomo's jibe at Republican Lew Lehrman's expensive choice of timepieces ("Nice watch,'' he observed during a 1980 New York gubernatorial debate) seemed to say volumes about Lehrman, who lost the race.

A cheap shot, some said later. Maybe. Or perhaps voters simply concluded Cuomo was a better candidate. After all, politicians with the common touch -- whether their names were Roosevelt or Kennedy or Bush -- never have let their wealth undermine their appeal.

Perhaps multimillionaire Democrat Blumenthal is familiar with fellow Greenwich resident Lehrman's brush with Cuomo.

Blumenthal's choice of timepiece? Timex.

Staff writer Neil Vigdor contributed to this report.

The profiles in this package were reported by staff writers Ken Dixon, Brian Lockhart, Robert Miller, Dirk Perrefort and Neil Vigdor.