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Some Of His Best Friends …

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GOP gubernatorial candidate Herbst in New Haven Thursday night.

Ex-Gold Coast investment banker Bob Stefanowski once wiped down seats at the Yale Bowl. And Timothy Herbst? He even has gay friends.

The two Republican gubernatorial candidates made those pitches Thursday night to members of the local party.

Stefanowski and GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Herbst both attended the Republican Town Committee’s (RTC) monthly meeting at 200 Orange St. to make their cases to New Haven voters in anticipation of the state party convention in May. It was the first in a series of opportunities for the crowded field of statewide candidates this year to try to convince the small but enthusiastic GOP in Democratic-dominated New Haven that they deserve its support — and that they can sell themselves to a city that last elected, say, a Republican mayor in 1951.

Bob Stefanowski at Thursday night’s meeting.

RTC chair Jonathan Wharton said that at least two Republican candidates for governor, and maybe even a few candidates for lieutenant governor, will be presenting at each of the next few New Haven RTC meetings so that New Haven Republicans can make an informed decision among a crowded field about which candidate to endorse. That endorsement will take place sometime in late April or early May, Wharton said. 

Stefanowski peppered his economic credentials and proposed remedies for the state’s financial woes with a handful of Elm City-specific details to illustrate his humble upbringing and longstanding reverence for fiscal responsibility.

He told the 40 local Republicans who attended Thursday night’s meeting that he was born at the Hospital of St. Raphael, that his dad worked for the Southern New England Telephone Company and ran the scoreboard at the Yale Bowl for 40 years, and that, although neither of his parents had college degrees, they paid for Bob and his sisters to become the first generation in his family to attend college. In his youth, Srefanowski said, he worked as a game-day usher at the Yale Bowl, wiping down seats for a quarter a piece while his dad operated the scoreboard.

He rose to become chief financial officer of UBS Investment Bank. In that role, he said, he managed a $500 billion balance sheet — ten times larger than the state of Connecticut’s budget. As a division officer at General Electric, he learned valuable lessons about how to negotiate with opponents and make tough decisions. These were skills, he said, that uniquely prepared him to run the state of Connecitcut, which he described as a very big, troubled organization that needs to be turned around.”

There are not a lot of candidates in this field right now that have run a business or a corporation or an organization the size of the state of Connecticut,” he said.

He said that his business background had prepared him to confront the state’s complex budgeting problems. He has rolled out an economic plan with former Reagan advisor and staunch supply-side economics supporter Arthur Laffer.

If tax and spend hasn’t worked for the last 25 years, then we have to do something about it,” he said. He promised to get rid of the death tax,” or estate tax; to start playing offense on business” by lowering the corporate tax rate; and to start to chip away” at the state income tax.

During the night, he and Herbst fielded questions from the local Republicans. Such as …

What About Underfunded Pensions?

Doug Losty.

How would you attack the biggest problem in the state budget: the unfunded pension liability issue,” asked former Republican state representative candidate Doug Losty. You’d have to directly confront the state labor unions, and it will be a bitter fight.”

Stefanowski said that he was used to negotiating multi-billion dollar deals during his tenures at UBS and GE. He said that he would talk with the union bosses and the rank and file workers about reopening the discussion of the state labor contracts.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll remind them that the firing freeze is only for four years,” he said, and on year five, we’re going to privatize some serious stuff.”

One young Republican asked how Stefanowski could win over voters in cities like New Haven that lean overwhelmingly Democratic.

Stefanowski said that he would speak to urban voters about the benefits of reduced government spending and lower taxes on revitalizing the state economy.

We’ve also got to get the cities to be more vibrant,” he said. We used to have the New Haven Coliseum. I think the only place that’s left is Toad’s Place. The young people need more places to go.”

Get With The Times”

The crowd at Thursday night’s RTC meeting.

Former Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst, who’s also running for the gubernatorial nomination, followed Stefanowski with an equally critical take on the state’s current finances. He said that the state’s looming budget deficit is already having a disproportionate impact on residents of cities like New Haven.

We are seeing cuts to municipal aid, educational aid, social services, programs that directly impact people,” he said. Why is that? The fixed costs in our budget continue to grow at rates that our income cannot sustain. It’s that simple.”

He said that he would lead by example if elected governor, and would refuse to take a pension from the state of Connecticut. He said that he would insist that his agency heads and staff do the same, and would argue that the part-time legislature also forsake its pension.

He also said that he was the only candidate for governor thus far to say that he will not accept campaign contributions from Hartford lobbyists, deriding special interest Hartford insiders” as wreaking havoc on the state government.

But the crux of Herbst’s pitch was pension and benefit reform for public employees.

I want to cut taxes too,” he said, but we have to deal with this first. It’s crippling the state budget.”

He said that new employees should have to go into defined contribution plans, and that existing employees would need to contribute more to their pensions. He vowed to eliminate perks for pensions, like the ability to count overtime towards pensions.

I’m not looking to hurt people,” he said. I’m not looking to lay people off. But we have to get with the times, folks.”

Homophobia? Outrageous”

New Haven RTC Chair Jonathan Wharton.

RTC Chair Jonathan Wharton asked Herbst to respond to allegations by some state Democrats that Herbst had been homophobic in his criticism of Andrew McDonald, whom Gov. Malloy has nominated to be the next chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

Herbst was quoted in a Jan. 8 CTMirror article calling McDonald, who is openly gay and had served as the governor’s chief counsel before being appointed as an associate justice on the state Supreme Court, a political appointee who is underqualified to serve on the court.

Herbst described the homophobia criticism as absolutely ridiculous.”

I have people who are supporting me that are gay,” he said. I have friends of mine that are gay. That’s outrageous.”

He said that the governor’s appointment of a former chief legal counsel to the Supreme Court in the first place was inherently a political appointment.”

They [Connecticut Democrats and the media] accused me of that [homophobia] because they don’t want to be criticized,” he said. And guess what? Sgt. Joe Friday said: Just the facts. Well then, stick to the facts. This has nothing to do with the person’s sexual orientation.”

Watch the complete presentations that Stefanoski and Herbst made to the New Haven RTC on Thursday night by clicking on the Facebook Live videos below.

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