Tom Foley, candidate for governor of Connecticut, scheduled a campaign stop/press conference at the gate of a doomed paper mill hoping to spotlight the failed economic policies of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
However, things quickly became ugly when First Selectwoman Cathy Osten, a Democratic state senator and Malloy supporter, confronted Foley, along with soon-to-be unemployed workers and the a manager at the Fusion Paperboard mill.
As the press conference spiral out of control, Foley spent over five minutes telling the attendees that it was their own fault the mill closed.
“You want to blame people who are hundreds or thousands of miles away, malign management. Listen, you have failed, because you have lost these jobs.”
As Courant reports:
That incensed Mike D’Auria, a Fusion manager who is trying to assemble a group that can buy a portion of the mill.
“These guys worked their butts off. Every single day, I watched them work, work, work. Me, too. Her, too,” D’Auria said, his voice rising. “Everyone who is being affected by this worked our asses off to get this right. We did not cause this, as she did not. The market drove this business into this position.”
[…]
As Foley argued with Osten and several workers, the scene was recorded by reporters and staff members of the campaigns of John P. McKinney, who is competing with Foley for the GOP nomination, and Malloy, the first-term Democratic incumbent.
At the conclusion of the news conference, reporters approached Mark Bergman, the spokesman for the Malloy campaign who had originally attended the conference to defend the governor. When asked about the press conference, Bergman just smiled, shook his head and said he had nothing to add.
The Connecticut Democratic Party later published an unedited video of the entire press conference on YouTube.
You can watch one edited to show only the relevant portion, below:
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