New Haven Independent

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“We need a decent Republican in this town,” one voter told Kiernan O’Connor outside the polls on Davis Street in upper Westville Tuesday morning. “And you’re the guy!”

“Some day,” the voter added, “I’ll vote for you. But not against Sergio…”

“Sergio” is Democrat Sergio Rodriguez, the man Republican Kiernan O’Connor hoped to topple Tuesday. The voter’s sort-of encouragement symbolized a challenge Republicans face in New Haven. Many people say they want a two-party democracy. But at heart, most like Democrats.

Election Day proved how irrelevant Republicans have become in New Haven, and how near to death New Haven’s semblance of a two-party democracy has slithered. (The Greens have pretty much disappeared, too, beyond fielding a handful of symbolic candidates, one of whom was invisible throughout the campaign season.)

Republicans fielded candidates in only five of 30 wards. In two of the wards, 8 and 25, the candidate was nowhere to be found, nor were there any visible signs of volunteers driving voters to the polls. The Republican candidate in Ward 25 (Westville) was enlisted to run just last week, never really campaigned, and was out of town for Election Day Tuesday; he didn’t even vote for himself. This embarrassing showing took place in what was once one of the Republicans’ final holdouts, a ward where Republicans held the aldermanic seat for more than three decades, until a popular Democrat broke the spell just two years ago.

Nor was there sign of any visible campaign activity around noon in Morris Cove’s Ward 19, home base of Arlene DePino, the Board Of Aldermen’s sole Republican. The Democrats didn’t bother running anyone against her.

Only in two wards — Fair Haven’s 14th Ward and Westville’s 26th — were there any signs of life. The candidates there, both young and proudly Republican in philosophy, offered their versions of what it means to be a GOPer in a city where “Democrat” is the official political religion. They also left the word “Republican” off the literature they handed out at the polls. They didn’t come that close to winning, but they waged respectable campaigns that offered a glimpse of a small-d democratic city.

“Way Too Much Special Interest Money”

Juan Montalvo did in Ward 14 what precious few Republicans or third-party candidates in New Haven do: He and his supporters identified hundreds of sympathetic voters. They made a list. They called those people up on election day and drove many to the polls. You can’t run a serious campaign without doing that.

Montalvo, who’s 24 and a paralegal by profession, said he identified 450 such voters. That’s technically enough to win. And he inherited a team of supporters from Evelyn Vargas, a Democrat who lost a primary challenge for the seat in September. Montalvo nevertheless recognized the campaign was an uphill battle against incumbent Democrat Joseph Jolly. Jolly ended up beating Montalvo 460 to 147.

Still, he and Jolly offered voters a true choice and a competitive race. Jolly is a Democrat loyal to Mayor John DeStefano. He has embraced liberal issues like campaign-finance reform and environmentalism. He has also supported gay rights; ministers influential in Fair Haven’s large Latino community have made fighting gay rights a political crusade.

A committed philosophical conservative, Montalvo focused his campaign on cutting taxes, on cutting back government.

“The working poor and middle class cannot afford it,” he said in reference to the city’s three tax hikes over the past two years. “They’ve being driven out of the city. You drive down Farren Avenue and Lancraft Street, and all you see is for-sale signs.”

Montalvo rejected the argument that New Haven’s budget woes derive from tax cuts and budget cuts promoted by the Republican White House and U.S. Congress.

“There’s a lot of opposition in this ward,” he said. “People want change.”

For all their conservative principles, Republican politicians in New Haven tend to stress the need for independent, non-ideological watchdogs in a government controlled by one party. Montalvo railed against the power of the city Democratic machine. He offered his own take on campaign finance reform: The problem with a Democratic mayor who shakes down his city contractors for tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. “That bothers me,” Montalvo said. “Way too much special interest money is going to the mayor.”

He Shows Up

“You want to downplay the fact” that you’re Republican, said Kiernan O’Connor, a 35-year-old financial analyst seeking the 26th Ward seat. “After they get to know you, they say, ‘You’re a Republican? You’re not so bad.’”

O’Connor grew up knowing about how to be a successful independent Republican in New Haven. The youngest of nine children, he lived on Forest Road, in Ward 25, where for more than a decade Jonathan Einhorn won elections to the Board of Aldermen with strong Democratic support. Einhorn stressed the need for intelligent oversight of Democratic-run City Hall. And he portrayed himself as an ideological moderate.

O’Connor makes no apologies for his conservative philosophy. “I’m a devout Roman Catholic,” he said Tuesday. Traditionally, Roman Catholics were Democrats, at least until Ronald Reagan ushered in a new version of the Republican Party that appealed to families like O’Connor’s on social issues.

Quoting his father, O’Connor, who has the bearing and good looks of a Kennedy, said Roman Catholics once were Democrats. “Then we learned how to read.” That means they saw their values reflected in the Republican pro-life, pro-military, pro-limited government platform.

In knocking on some 800 doors in his ward, O’Connor said, he found people receptive to a message of lowering taxes and offering school choice through programs like vouchers. You don’t need to put a “Republican” label on it. Unlike wealthy parents who can afford private school, “parents who don’t have a choice of where to send their kids lose their rights” to ensure their children a good education, O’Connor argued.

Rodriguez beat O’Connor 576-193.

The Chamber of Commerce endorsed O’Connor. He’s active on the chamber’s government affairs committee. He also serves on the board of a business-public schools partnership called Connecticut State Scholars.

He shows up to stuff. That’s why he was able to mount a credible campaign, O’Connor said. Therein, he said, is a lesson for a city Republican Party in need of resuscitation.

“It’s about showing up and sharing ideas and energy,” he said. Maybe next time Republicans will show up and share energy in more than two of New Haven’s 30 wards. Maybe.