Hartford — Before University
of Connecticut professor Ken
Dautrich conducted a focus group

budget message and talking points
with potential voters last year, he
and Rell’s top aide had a different

“I don’t think opinion should
drive decisions, but at a minimum
should be taken into account and
the governor should take the lead
in shaping it,” Dautrich wrote to

The e-mail was one of Dautrich’s
regular briefings to Moody
and another Rell aide about the
status of his $223,000 project

to examine the streamlining of Connecticut government. That project, Rell and her

week, also included efforts to
gauge and analyze public opinion
about the policies she would
advocate in public.

Democrats and lawmakers
roundly criticized that public
relations effort Thursday as an
inappropriate political project
being performed on the public’s

She wrote back to Dautrich: “I
agree — got some money — Matt
(Fritz, a Rell aide) will fill you

“money” to which Moody referred
was additional funds made
available in the budget of the
Office of Policy and Management,
which bankrolled the Dautrich

The poll Dautrich envisioned was
never conducted as part of his
project with OPM, Dautrich, Rell
and administration representatives
said in interviews this week. The
reasons they gave for not pursuing
the poll were varied.

Dautrich said in an interview
that he declined to pursue it
because UConn rules at the time
would have forced him to run

the poll through the Center for
Survey Research and Analysis, a
polling center he once directed
but with which he had a strained
relationship by last summer.

A spokesman for the governor’s
office, relaying answers
from Moody, said the poll
wasn’t conducted because the
administration and Dautrich felt
they could get better information
about voter sentiment from a
focus group — like the nine-
member panel Dautrich convened
Dec. 16 as Rell’s staff prepared
her biennial budget.

But while Rell’s staff said this
week that discussion of polling
on budget issues ended there, a
subsequent email from Moody to
two colleagues shows that is not

Deli in Vernon to talk about
polling budget messages, specific
cuts, etc.,” Moody wrote to the
staffers, Fritz and Adam Jeamel.
“Let me know if you want to join

spokesman said Wednesday that
she meant to refer to the results
of Dautrich’s focus group on
budget policy — the terms were
used “interchangeably,” said the