Politics & Government

Second District Primary: Formica vs. Novak

The incumbent Democrat, Joseph Courtney, is not part of tomorrow's primary because no one challenged his party's endorsement.

With the Second Congressional District’s incumbent Democrat running unchallenged for re-election, tomorrow’s primary features two Republican combatants, the party-endorsed candidate and his challenger.

Paul Formica, who was endorsed by his party earlier this year to challenge incumbent Democrat Joseph Courtney in the Second District, is East Lyme’s first selectman. Formica is being challenged Tuesday by conservative Republican Daria Novak, a businesswoman who favors greater fiscal responsibility in government and who has painted Formica, a registered Republican, as a “liberal.”

Formica has won the endorsement of major newspapers throughout the Second District, including the Norwich Bulletin, The Day of New London and the Hartford Courant.

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The Courant said Formica is the best choice in the district primary because, in part, he has “kept taxes down by being careful with spending and working with Democrats to keep costs in check. He's pushed a revitalization project that has brought 10 new businesses to the downtown area.”

Novak was recently endorsed by the online site, “A Small Corner of Sanity,” which called Novak “a rather unique candidate in today’s fractured and highly-suspicious climate of American politics. One who has tremendous political and policy experience, particularly in international affairs and crisis management during her tenure in the Reagan administration’s State Department. But also one who has assembled a formidable grassroots campaign that has strong Tea Party roots. Not the usual mix that has been the norm of “insurgent” candidates over the last three years.”

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Formica, who owns the Flanders Fish Market in East Lyme, says on his campaign website that he’s running for Congress because he believes President Obama has failed to deliver on his promises of hope and change.

“The policies that were promised as Hope and Change simply haven’t materialized. The President supported by Joe Courtney’s vote almost all of the time has exploded the national debt, forced the biggest tax and mandate on all of us through Obama-care and has failed to add jobs,” Formica said.

On her campaign website Novak, founder and former president of ERUdyne LLC, an international business consulting firm, said she wants to serve the district because she fears the current leadership in the White House and in the district is taking the country down the wrong path.

“Since this Administration took office, we have seen our government grow, our national debt increase, our paychecks shrink, and our country lose its stature in the world. In order for our children and the future generations beyond to live in a Nation, governed by the Constitution our Forefathers established, that encourages personal success and individual liberty, we must stop the course our Nation is on and steer it back to the principles upon which it was built — freedom, faith, and prosperity.”

Polls will open at 6 a.m. for tomorrow’s primary and close at 8 p.m.


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