A campaign you deserve

Yesterday afternoon at the Southbury DTC candidate forum, expanding on a no negative ads resolution passed by the DTC, Chris challenged his Democratic opponents to agree to run a clean campaign, free of negative attacks on other Democrats.

Please sign up to support Chris’ proposal for a campaign you can be proud of!

Chris proposed that all of the candidates agree to not negatively campaign against each other, to not allow affiliated outside groups to attack the Democratic campaigns, and he proposed putting some teeth into the agreement by asking all candidates to agree to give 50% of the cost of any negative ads, from the campaigns or from outside groups, to a charity agreed upon by the candidates in advance (the full proposal is below).

He said, “In a Democratic primary, Democrats tearing down other Democrats is destructive and plays into the hands of Republicans. Ultimately, it makes our goal of fighting for middle class families, for jobs, and to protect Medicare and Social Security that much harder.”

One of our opponents immediately made it clear that she plans on launching negative attacks against fellow Democrats. Not only wouldn’t she agree to Chris’ comprehensive agreement against negative campaigning, she wouldn’t even agree to the more mild one proposed by the Southbury DTC!

Please join us in calling on all Democratic candidates to support Chris’ proposal and run a campaign that we all deserve!

Chris’ Proposal:

DOING RIGHT BY OTHER DEMOCRATS
Agreeing to avoid negative campaigning in the
2012 Democratic primary campaign

Negative campaigning between Democratic campaigns in a primary election only serves to help Republicans at our expense. It dampens the enthusiasm of Democratic voters, depresses turnout, and allows Republican candidates to reap the benefits of the ads without having to expend their resources.

Democratic primary voters deserve the chance to hear why each of us feel we’re best qualified to be the next representative of the district and we should take the lead in committing to run no negative attacks against each other and to speak out against any group acting on our behalf who runs such attacks.

With that in mind, the Donovan campaign requests a meeting with representatives from the Elizabeth Esty, Dan Roberti, and Randy Yale campaigns, led by the Southbury DTC, to come to an agreement which includes the following general parameters:

1. All candidates agree to refrain from running negative ads by their campaigns during the Democratic primary.

2. All candidates agree to denounce any negative ads run by outside groups during the Democratic primary, and call for those ads to be halted.

3. All candidates agree that if their campaigns, or outside groups with the goal of helping to elect them, run negative ads during the Democratic primary, the campaign pledges to donate 50% of the cost of the offending expenditure to a charity or charities agreed upon in advance by the three campaigns.

We look forward to having an open discussion between the campaigns and to coming to an agreement that ensures Democratic voters get the race they deserve.