The fundraising reports are starting to flow in for the Connecticut Gubernatorial race. Ned Lamont has raised $79,000. Dan Malloy has raised $70,000. Rudy Marconi has raised $54,000. On Wednesday, the Second Circuit will hear oral arguments in Green Party of Connecticut, et al. v. Jeffrey Garfield et al. concerning the Citizen’s Election Program which sets limits on how much potential Gubernatorial candidates can raise. And SCOTUS Blog reports that the Supreme Court may release an opinion as early as today on the Citizens United v. FEC about how corporate money gets used in campaigns. While all this gets fought out in the courts, the Citizen’s Election Program is playing an interesting and important role in the campaigns here in Connecticut.

The Rudy Marconi campaign came out with another great ad distributed via YouTube highlighting Marconi’s support of the program and urging everyone to participate.

Mark Robinson from the Marconi campaign sent my wife and I a link to the video, which I thought was great. I added it as a favorite and subscribed to the Marconi campaign’s YouTube video feed. I have worked hard to integrate much of my social media, so the news of this subscription rapidly appeared on my Facebook page, and before I knew it was up, I received an email from Matt Gianquinto of the Malloy campaign, urging me to subscribe to their YouTube feed as well.

In terms of creative and amusing advertisements, the Marconi campaign is currently in the lead. However, the Malloy campaign is also making great use of YouTube. Instead of seeing it as a new media to distribute advertisements promoting a candidate and their stance on certain issues, the Malloy campaign is using YouTube to allow more people to view what goes on at Democratic Town Committee meetings as the candidates crisscross our state talking with potential supporters.

To illustrate this, and provide a little equal time, here is Dan Malloy “addressing the disparities between the haves & have-nots” at Hartford Democratic Town Committee Gubernatorial Forum.

As the amount of money spent by Gubernatorial candidates gets brought under control by the Citizen’s Election Program, campaigns are needing to be more frugal and innovative in how they reach voters. No longer can they simply blanket the airwaves. Now, they need to interact. Matt and Mark are both great examples of campaign staff that are using new media to interact with voters. They are bringing innovation, creativity and interactivity to their campaigns.

The Citizen’s Election Program is extremely valuable simply for removing the corrosive influence of large donor money to campaigns and reducing the chances of corruption in the campaigns. Yet perhaps a more important and overlooked aspect is that it is bringing out the frugality and innovation of some of the best candidates and during these difficult times we need to find leaders that are frugal and innovative.

There are some that are out of touch with the voters of Connecticut, suggesting that the money spent on making sure our elections are fair and clean would be better spent on other programs during these difficult financial times. Taken to its logical end, what they are really suggesting is that we should suspend democracy in our country during difficult times; running fair and clean elections costs money to the state and to municipalities. This money, they would suggest, could be better spent elsewhere. Such an approach would be good for protecting incumbents. It would make sure that those who were in power as they economy went bad stayed in power. But would be bad democracy and for the very principals that our country is based on.

First Selectman Marconi and his staffer Mark Robinson and Mayor Malloy and his staffer Matt Gianquinto are strong illustrations of why we need the Citizen’s Election Program and the innovation and creativity that it brings to our state.