She’s Knocking On The Doors Of Rs, Us, & Ds

Guilford Selectman Cindy Cartier was once a Democrat, and even, in her words, ​“a bleeding heart liberal.” These days she’s the Republican candidate for the Branford and Guilford seat in the 98th Assembly District —and though she says she’s socially liberal, her fiscal politics have changed.

In the three months since she announced her campaign against eight-term incumbent State Rep. Pat Widlitz (who also serves as a deputy majority leader), Cartier has qualified for state funds though the Citizen’s Election Program. She says she has also knocked on over 1,000 doors throughout Branford and Guilford.

In addition to campaigning, Cartier works as assistant general counsel for the Nationwide Insurance Company, serves on the Board of Selectmen in Guilford, co-owns the New England Car Wash in Branford with her husband, and teaches a biweekly yoga class. She said she plans to keep her seat on the Board of Selectmen even if she’s elected to the assembly. In the past, she has served on the Guilford Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Education. ​“I have a lot of energy,” she says.

We caught up with her at the Parthenon Diner, the same diner she picked for her campaign announcement speech because, Cartier said, ​“there’s nothing more all American than a diner, and also because it’s a Greek diner, Greece the birthplace of our democracy.”

In an interview, she emphasized her past history as a liberal Democrat, saying that she worked on both Michael Dukakis’ and Walter Mondale’s presidential campaigns in college and law school. ​“I’m not some right wing extremist,” she said, ​“By no means. In fact, I used to be a Democrat. I grew up bleeding heart liberal — you know, if you’re not liberal when you’re young you have no heart.”

Cartier, 44, became a Republican as she started her own political career, running for town council in Hamden’s Spring Glen neighborhood in 1998. When local Republicans first asked her to run, she said, she was still a Democrat, thinking, ​“I don’t know if I can do this.” But she said examining her political beliefs made her realize she had a lot in common with Connecticut Republicans. After she was elected to the town council in Hamden, she liked being a Republican because ​“I didn’t owe anybody except the people that put me there — my constituents — I didn’t have to worry about all these interest groups, and unfortunately you do as a Democrat. Not that I’m against any of those groups, but the only people who put me in were the people voting for me.” (Advocates of the public campaign system say it aims to reduce the influence of special interests that fund elections.)

She also said that her choice had to do with the Democratic Party itself: ​“I really started looking at it, and I realized I wasn’t as liberal as I used to be, and the DemocraticPparty — what I thought it was — had changed. I believe in individual responsibility. I don’t believe that the government should take care of us for everything. Government should incentivize and motivate if at all possible but not obviate our individual choices.”

And how is she socially liberal? ​“For one thing, I’m pro-choice,” she said. ​“Nothing is black and white. I won’t deny that if I’d been in my 20s and had to face that choice I’d probably have had an abortion. But I still think you’re taking a life, and you have to take responsibility.” She is also passionate about improving health and fitness, a goal which, for her, transcends party lines, she said.

Fiscally, Cartier said she hopes to help small businesses on a local basis while streamlining the state regulatory and bureaucratic processes. She also wants to get rid of unneeded administrative functions at the state level, she said. ​“We’re not an employment agency — we need to do things respectfully and honorable for the people who are paying the taxes.” And she does not believe in the government supplying social services. ​“The government shouldn’t be in the role of providing social services unless there’s a complete void in the community,” she said, ​“And that also helps our businesses, and that makes us all connected and responsible.”

Cartier stressed working together as a community on issues of development. ​“I’m big in partnering with the private sector,” she said. ​“It’s tough, nobody wants things in their back yard, nobody wants cell towers — and I get all that. But at the same time we have to keep remembering to say we’re a community. Somebody may not want development, but it may be good for the town as a whole because we need the resources.” And she argued that those resources will help with other issues facing the town, like protecting Long Island Sound, one of her opponent’s priorities. Cartier argued that balancing the budget and improving the economy come first, and that in difficult economic times people are thinking more about putting food on the table. ​“If we’re taking care of the money, we’ll have the resources we need to protect the environment,” she says. ​“But if we don’t, people now are like ​‘I don’t care what you put in, pave the planet’ and that’s exactly what we want to avoid.”

After our interview, we followed Cartier’s silver Jeep (with Save the Sound plates) to Pine Orchard where she knocked on doors. She had a list of all the houses on each street, and stopped at each one to rapidly introduce herself and hand over a flyer. ​“They originally only wanted me to knock on Rs and Us [Republican and unaffiliated],” she said, ​“but I can’t tell you how many Ds I’ve knocked on.”

The town of Guilford, which comprises the largest part of the 98th district, has 5,051 registered Democratic voters, 3,505 registered Republicans, and 6,818 unaffiliated, a category most politicians target. By the end of the summer, Cartier said, she hopes to have visited 4,000 homes in Guilford, Stony Creek, and Pine Orchard.

She was willing to talk to everyone, even people renting from out of town, ​“because you never know who they might talk to.” She also said she’s not shy about pitching her campaign to those who do not share her beliefs. ​“Even if you’re not a supporter of mine, you should want this information, you should want to hear what I have to say,” she argued. ​“Even if ultimately I don’t win, I want to wake people up; I want to educate people. I’m not going away.”

As we went up the street at 5 p.m. many houses were still empty, so she left a flyer (locally made) in each door. ​“Some people could be at the beach,” she said, ​“I don’t blame ​‘em.” So she decided to canvass on the beach at the end of the road, handing out flyers to people on the sand. One man asked Cartier if she is Republican. When she responded, he complained that her party affiliation did not appear on her fliers. She nodded. ​“I want people to look at me first.” 

Editor’s Note: Laura Marris lives in Guilford. She was graduated from Yale in May with a B.A. in English. This summer she is an intern with the Branford Eagle, pursuing her interest in writing and reporting. 

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