New Haven Independent

Technically the 5 p.m. rally on the City Hall steps, against a dramatic backdrop of light emanating from the upper-floor arches, concerned a race between Perez and challenger Carl Goldfield in January’s election for a new Board of Aldermen president.

But the rally speakers, who included state legislators and Latino politicians from Hartford and Bridgeport, said precious little about Goldfield. Instead they focused on Mayor DeStefano, who supports Goldfield’s candidacy. The ralliers threatened that DeStefano’s support for Goldfield could doom his 2006 candidacy for governor.

Never in modern history, if ever, has a Board of Aldermen presidency race attracted this kind of attention. Or any attention. Only the board’s 30 aldermen vote for board president. But this year the race fueled a series of primaries — and a debate over the direction of New Haven’s perenially lame legislative body. (Click here and here to read articles about the Perez-Goldfield race.) Perez has galvanized supporters who feel the mayor’s office is trying to stifle dissent by supporting a challenger to a board president who raises questions about the administration’s conduct. Goldfield has drawn strong support on the board with a call for a new direction for the board; he says he has the votes necessary to win.

Former Mayor Daniels’ speech climaxed Tuesday’s spirited rally. He never occupied City Hall in its present location. But he must have felt at home, because the crowd looked remarkably similar to the faces you saw in Daniels’ successful 1989 mayoral campaign against John DeStefano: politicians like State Sen. Toni Harp and State Rep. Bill Dyson, organizers with Yale’s unions and District 1199 of the Health Care Employees Union, black and Latino aldermen. (Ironically, Jorge Perez backed DeStefano, not Daniels, in that race.)

Daniels noted that the public can’t vote for board president. But he urged people to call their aldermen to urge them to vote for Perez.

“My friends, this is a very important election. Let me tell you why,” Daniels said. Perez has “served his city well.” And with DeStefano running for governor, New Haven needs an experienced board of aldermen president, since that position is next in line to succeed the mayor.

In a conversation before the rally began, Daniels cautioned DeStefano to back away from the aldermanic race. “It makes no sense to win a battle and lose the war,” he said.

What war?

“The governor’s race. For any Democrat to win in Connecticut, that Democrat has to motivate the Democratic base. If the candidate is in a battle with his Democratic base, he could very well lose. Look at the people who are here. This is the Democratic base.”

New York Parallel

A remarkably similar base has elected, and failed to elect, Democrats in New Haven and New York. In 1989 the same coalition — black and Latino leaders plus organizers from District 1199 — elected both Daniels in New Haven and New York’s David Dinkins, another establishment liberal black Democrat. Both campaigns simultaneously stressed a rainbow coalition that crossed color boundaries while also appealing to a sense in both cities’ black and Latino communities that it was time to elect a person of color.

That same appeal failed dramatically in New York City this year. Mayor Mike Bloomberg vanquished Fernando Ferrer in this mayoral race for a variety races, one of them a huge gap in money, but one factor was the belief of Bloomberg’s team that a new set of issues and voter-targeting strategy works better in 21st century cities. (Click here for a Times story detailing that strategy.) The outcome suggests that while race and ethnicity will always play some role in elections, but they may be losing their potency. Voters of all races may respond better now to campaigns that emphasize issues of security and government accountability over ones that appeal to race.

In interviews and public statements, Perez has made a point of doing that. He has not cast this campaign as racial. He and many of the speakers at the rally cast the central issue as democracy and accountability — the need for an independent Board of Aldermen to hold the mayor’s office accountable. Perez emphasized that he feels Goldfield has every right to run for the office and that the race should be determined by the candidates’ merits. There was a racial sub-theme to the rally, both in the highly unusual presence of out-of-town (and Latino) politicians at a rally over such a local position, and the sometimes clear message that the minority community sees DeStefano’s abandonment of Perez as an abandonment of the Latino community.

“A Sentiment for Change”

“This isn’t about DeStefano,” Carl Goldfield (at left) responded Tuesday night. “It’s about leadership on the New Haven Board of Aldermen. There’s obviously a sentiment for change.”

Mayoral spokesman Derek Slep circulated through the crowd at the rally’s end. He said the mayor agrees with the rally’s speakers that the election is “up to the Board of Aldermen. Either way, New Haven wins. [DeStefano] has a strong relationship with Jorge [Perez]. He has a strong relationship with Carl.”

While Perez’s camp accuses DeStefano of trying to silence dissent, Goldfield’s camp sees DeStefano as standing on principle. The idea for Goldfield’s candidacy emerged from aldermen wanting change, not from the mayor, and DeStefano is sticking by an ally, Goldfield, even at a potential cost to his gubernatorial campaign.

In an interview with the Independent last week about the race, Mayor DeStefano maintained that the idea for Goldfield to run came not from the mayor’s office, but from a new majority of the board that has united behind a progressive agenda that includes gay civil rights, greater regulation of absentee landlords and publicly financed elections.

“I’ve been supportive less of Carl [Goldfield] than of a group that is a majority of the board” and is behind Goldfield’s candidacy, DeStefano said. “The group has coalesced consistently around these progressive issues… These are the things that are important here.” The board majority, including Goldfield, differed with Perez not only on the gay registry issue, but on a new law requiring inspections of absentee-owned apartments. Perez said he opposed the proposal because it didn’t contain enough money to do the job right. Proponents said the city could handle the job and offer better protection to renters, especially immigrants fearful of calling the authorities on slumlords.

Full disclosure: In his capacity as a private attorney, Alderman Goldfield did the legal work to incorporate The Online Journalism Project, which funds this web site.