Eyeing governor's race, Potts hires Conn. expert

[Freddie Stubbs]

D'Amore assisted Weicker in his bidas an independent

BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 15, 2005


A Republican state senator considering an independent run for governor has hired a top adviser to the ex-Republican who became Connecticut's independent governor in 1990.

Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., R-Winchester, has signed Thomas J. D'Amore Jr., one-time chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party and former chief of staff to then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

In retaining D'Amore, Potts now widely viewed as a moderate -- edges closer to potentially breaking with his party, which he has criticized for what he described yesterday as its "flat-Earth policy."

"The first decision is whether or not he chooses to run, and then what course or another," D'Amore, a lobbyist, said from his office in Hartford, the Connecticut capital.

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