Paul Bass Photo
Backed by a new batch of local politicos, gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy came to town to make a pitch for cities — and for the support of one newly competitive city in particular.
That city was New Haven, which until recently seemed safely in the camp of Ned Lamont, the candidate Malloy is opposing in an Aug. 10 Democratic primary for governor.
Sunday night Malloy returned to his regional New Haven headquarters on Whalley Avenue for his second appearance this month, to accept the endorsement of the city’s second highest-ranking politician, State Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney (at center in top photo).
Looney (at center in top photo) praised both Malloy and Lamont as “accomplished, dedicated, honorable men who want to do the best for the state of Connecticut.”
“Only one of them has been the successful mayor of one of our largest cities for the past 14 years,” Looney said, referring to Malloy, the former mayor of Stamford. “Only one candidate is ready to” tackle issues like the budget crisis and schools on the first day in the job, he said.
New Haven’s top pol, Mayor John DeStefano, endorsed Ned Lamont months ago. He brought most of New Haven’s 81-member delegation, the state’s largest, along with him in backing Lamont at May’s Democratic state convention. Lamont opened his statewide headquarters in the city. It seemed in the bag.
Then in recent weeks dozens of elected officials and party activists began coalescing around Malloy, who statewide has cut Lamont’s lead in the polls to single digits. New Haven is back in play.
Click here to read about the crop of New Haven politicos who emerged as Malloy team leaders at the previous event at the local headquarters housed in a former garage squeezed between Papa John’s Pizza and the vegan restaurant Elaine’s Healthy Kitchen.
In addition to Looney, more prominent area pols showing up at the event included municipal union President Cherlyn Poindexter, budget watchdog Jeffrey Kerekes (pictured), Probate Judge Jack Keyes, former mayoral candidate Jim Perrillo, State Rep. Mike Lawlor, West River activists Jerry and Joyce Poole, Wooster Square Democratic Ward Co-Chair Chris Randall. They joined such previously signed-up Malloy supporters as Aldermen Michael Smart, Darnell Goldson, Andrea Jackson-Brooks, and Jackie James; State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield; former State Rep. Bill Dyson, and former Town Chairman Nick Balletto.
In the campaign, Lamont has portrayed himself as a businessman with the skills to tackle a $3.5 billion budget deficit and as the outsider freed from politics as usual. Malloy has portrayed himself as the only candidate with experience running a government, and therefore with the skills needed to tackle budget, education, housing, and other issues on day one without the need for on-the-job training.
Looney and other supporters picked up on that theme Sunday night.
“We need someone who knows what the heck he’s doing,” Lawlor said. “I know the CEO thing [Lamont’s credentials as head of a closed-circuit cable TV company]. That doesn’t mean anything in government. Dan’s the only one who would go in there and make some order of the chaos that’s been going on there for the last six, seven years.”
Connecticut last elected a Democratic governor in 1986. Meanwhile, cities have argued that the suburban-dominated legislature has shortchanged their interested.
Energized by the 75 or so supporters crammed into the garage headquarters Sunday night, Malloy made a pitch for a city-focused state government concerned about property tax reform, school reform, preserved state education funding, mass transit, lowered electric rates. The crowd was with him; click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch a snippet.
“There’s a ticking time bomb out there. If you care about urban education, understand what this governor [M. Jodi Rell] has done,” Malloy said, referring to a 14.5 percent pending cut in the state Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant. “If New Haven loses that, If Hamden loses that,” thousands of teachers and custodians and paraprofessionals will lose jobs, he said.
“I was born in a city,” Malloy continued. “If I was to be governor of the state of Connecticut, there is no area that is going to receive more of my interest and hard work than urban areas. Because I understand that a rising tide must lift all boats. For a generation that has not happened in our state. That is about to change.”
Lamont, too, emphasized urban policy in a July 6 press conference at Science Park. He promised to clean up brownfields to make way for new city businesses, to boost train service, to support New Haven-style school reform. Click here to read that story.
For some in the crowd, the gubernatorial primary will have as much to do with local politics as with the statehouse. Many of the Malloy supporters drawn to the New Haven office have been opponents of the DeStefano administration and the Democratic machine. The primary will test whether a local opposition exists citywide that can identify and pull significant numbers of voters. That’s an open question. The last time that happened was more than 20 years ago, when an obscure 1988 Democratic primary for the position of New Haven registrar of voters created a vote-pulling organization that a year later toppled the party establishment in a mayoral primary.
Back row from left: Lt. governor candidate Nancy Wyman, Elaine Braffman, Malloy, Looney, city union chief Cherlyn Poindexter.
Faces from the past: former Dixwell Alderwoman Mae Ola Riddick, former Redevelopment Agency chief Bill Donohue, former Branford party boss Dan Cosgrove.
Why do White politician love to use African American children in there photo opp.