Excitement Gap Vs. Vision Gap

J. R. Romano ​‘s party has an excitement gap. Roland Lemar’s party has a vision gap.

The two veteran campaigners don’t say that about each other’s party. They say that about their own party.

Romano chairs the Connecticut Republican Party. Lemar, a Democratic state representative from New Haven’s 96th General Assembly District, works on legislative campaigns statewide.

They spent close to an hour in a radio studio the other day offering informed, starkly opposed visions about how Connecticut can climb out of its fiscal mess (lower taxes? new taxes? taxes on the rich?) and whom to blame for the mess.

But amid the debating, on an episode of WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program, each offered an honest self-assessment of their parties’ predicaments as they gear up for the sure to be hotly contested 2018 gubernatorial and statewide elections.

Lemar, for instance, argued that his party has yet to produce a gubernatorial candidate ​“with a compelling vision of tomorrow,” a candidate who can inspire voters who blame Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the legislature’s Democratic majority for tax hikes, reduced services, repeated budget crises, and companies and population fleeing the state.

Right now, he said, the party is at risk of losing ​“the messaging war” to Republicans who’ll place Malloy’s ​“toxic” name on every campaign flyer, even though he’s not running for reelection.

“We have to have a candidate who can articulate a clear vision for how we can move forward. We don’t have that,” Lemar acknowledged.

“The Democratic brand in Connecticut is suffering to the point that our natural advantage that we should have in a mid-term election with a Republican president, with Democratic ranks of voters far outnumbering Republicans, we’ve lost that advantage. All he natural advantages that we should have we don’t have right now because our brand has suffered and we don’t have a candidate who can articulate where we should be.”

GOP Chair Romano, on the other hand, noted that President Trump has ​“energized the Democrat base” to turn out for elections and vote against Republicans. He said he predicted a 10 percent rise in Democratic turnout in this past fall’s municipal elections, and that came true. Some local Republican organizations responded by organizing their own supporters and holding onto seats, but others were outhustled, Romano said.

He’s looking to make sure that doesn’t happen in 2018. The GOP doesn’t need to focus on voters who ​“scream from the hilltops about Donald Trump,” because those voters weren’t intending to vote for Republicans, anyway, Romano argued. Rather, the party needs to ​“match the intensity” of the Democrats to get its message to people fed up with the government status quo.

“Republicans romanticize about the founding of our nation,” Romano said. ​“I explain that right now we are fighting for the fabric of our state. People are fighting to [afford to] stay here. We have to be inspired by that story of our foudners. They sacrificed their treasure. They sacrificed their lives in many cases. It shouldn’t be a big deal to sacrifice a Saturday to go door knocking.

Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full episode of WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program with state GOP Chair J.R. Romano and Democratic State Rep. Roland Lemar.