She’s got a few thousand dollars and support from two car repair groups. Can Peggy Rogers jumpstart a campaign that would roll over a popular incumbent?
Rogers announced Tuesday she is seeking the Republican bid for Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District seat, which has been held by Democrat U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro since 1991. The district includes New Haven and surrounding towns.
Rogers, who’s 54, owns a body shop and a towing service in Milford with her husband, Bob. She made the announcement at the Stonebridge Restaurant in Milford, her hometown. (Click on the play arrow above to watch.)
Local Republicans said they recruited Rogers in effort to make a “very serious run” at DeLauro, after failing to come up with a serious candidate for 18 years. DeLauro has not faced a strong opponent since Republican Tom Scott challenged her in 1992.
Rogers has a long way to go. She doesn’t have much money—her war chest contains less than $5,000. She doesn’t have a campaign manager, a staff or campaign organization, or experience running for public office.
She has the backing of two statewide auto-repair lobbying groups, and so far only the expectation of financial support from them. In fact, her husband, Bob, was not able to attend her announcement - he was out on a towing job.
She has a campaign treasurer, Lorraine Z. Murphy, shown in picture with Gary Schulte, a lineman for AT&T who designed her website for free.
She also has grit and determination.
Is that enough to mount a meaningful challenge to well-connected Congresswoman DeLauro, who has held the post for 10 terms?
Rogers was optimistic. She said that longevity in Washington may prove to be DeLauro’s Achilles’ heel.
“There is a lot of hostility toward the established candidate,” she said. That, the fact that DeLauro got only 77.4 percent of the vote against two nonentities, the perception that the Democrats are in trouble, plus the usual midyear drop for the party in the White House all give her hope, she said.
That position was seconded by Milford GOP Chairman Tom Jagodzinski as he wrote a check out to Rogers’ campaign. Jagodzinski helped recruit her for the campaign.
“We have the strongest state team in years,” he said. The GOP intends to make a “very serious run” at DeLauro this time around after not mounting a serious candidate since 1992, he said.
It will take a serious run to unseat the popular and powerful DeLauro, he acknowledged.
The longtime congresswoman is not the only one about whom Rogers has to worry. Before she can run in the general election against Democrat DeLauro, Rogers faces a contest for the Republican nomination from Jerry Labriola Jr., treasurer of the Republican State Central Committee. He is the son of Jerry Labriola, a physician, author, candidate for the Senate and State Senator, as well as the nephew of a state representative, David Labriola of Naugatuck. Labriola announced his candidacy earlier in the week.
“I’ll be honest. This is going to be an uphill race,” she said. She said she has no illusions about her chances, but is hopeful that she will win.
She’s also realistic about her financial situation. “I don’t have any answers for that,” she said when asked about her lack of money and the cost of television time. “Perhaps I can reach people with radio,” she said.
Rogers (pictured) just registered as a Republican in the last couple of years. She first registered in 1973 in the aftermath of Watergate and didn’t want to be in the GOP because of the scandal. She said she never bothered to change because as in independent, she got literature from both parties.
Although she insisted she would not be a one-issue congresswoman, Rogers talked at length about the problems of a small business owner in general and a body shop owner fighting the insurance companies in particular.
“I own a body shop and am dealing with insurance companies all the time,” she said. Insurance companies have antitrust exemptions that other businesses do not and she said she would work to change that in Washington.
“I would get on the Insurance Committee,” she said. People should work on things they know about, she said. As she spoke, her mouth sometimes formed a near snarl of determination, almost looking angry for a split second at times.
“My point is that we need to get rid of the McCarran-Ferguson Act” that gives the insurance companies antitrust exemptions. She said she also would work to get payroll taxes lifted from small businesses for six months so they could use that money to create jobs. She said that although her businesses gross more than $2 million annually, she isn’t always sure she can make ends meet at them.
Asked about the two industry groups that have promised to support her campaign, the Auto Body Association of Connecticut and the Towing and Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, she said she realized that they would expect to have “a voice” in Congress if she is elected.
“They would love to have someone down there,” she said.
Asked about her politics, Rogers said she is a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. Her political model was the late William F. Buckley Jr. “I am very conservative,” she said. “I believe that the only possible result of an ever-expanding government is ever-contracting personal liberty.”
Asked what she would do to help struggling people in New Haven and elsewhere in the district, she said the best thing to do is get government out of the way and let the free market work to create jobs.
If this candidate is representative of the kind of options that the republicans are going to offer us, Rosa needn't spend a dime on fundraising. It's too bad for everyone if there isn't real competition. It hurts us and it even hurts the incumbent. They never have to answer to us.