GOP's Michael Pace and Andrew Tammaro at WNHH FM.
Michael Pace decided to stop complaining about Hamden’s problems and try instead to help fix them.
The 51-year-old chiropractor knew his friends and family were tired of hearing him talk about high taxes and crime.
His kids were growing up, leaving home. He had extra time on his hand. So he decided to do something new: run for office.
“Instead of complaining about the way things are,” he resolved, “try to do something about it.”
That’s how Pace found himself on the ballot as a Republican challenger this year to incumbent Democratic State Rep. Joshua Elliott for the 88th District seat, which represents the Mount Carmel and Spring Glen neighborhoods. Elliott is running for a fourth term. Pace plans a formal campaign kick-off event Thursday night.
He’s one of several candidates recruited by GOP Town Chair Andrew Tammaro who, at 24, is working hard to revive the party with new faces and voices in a community where Democrats outnumber Republicans four to one and have been easily winning contested elections. (Click here and here to read about two other candidates he recruited this year.)
With candidates like Pace, Tammaro said during a joint appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline Hamden” program, he’s aiming at swaying the approximately 13,000 unaffiliated voters in town as well as moderate “Kennedy Democrats” who “left New Haven 50, 60 years ago” for what seemed a more livable community.
With the 88th District race, Pace and Tammaro are taking on one of the legislature’s leading progressives in Elliott, who has taken a lead on issues ranging from prison reform to legalizing recreational use of cannabis and a pilot study of depression and PTSD treatment involving MDMA psilocybin.
“When you ask people in Hamden, I can’t imagine any of these things would crack people’s top five” priorities, Tammaro argued.
“I think we need more attention to the people who are victims of these criminals” than to people who commit crimes, Pace argued.
He said that if elected, he would seek to “help our mayor get some funds” from the state to hire more police officers and lower taxes.
“First and foremost, it’s taxes,” Pace said when asked about his own priorities.
He said he does support Elliott’s effort to support the psilocybin/MDMA test for medical treatment of depression and PTSD. He emphasized that he would not support legalization of recreational use of psychedelic drugs.
Elliott, who briefly mounted a campaign earlier this year for secretary of the state, is pushing for election reforms including ranked-choice voting, voting rights for the incarcerated, and an“opt-out system” under which people otherwise automatically receive mail-in ballots. Pace disagreed with Elliott’s proposals, arguing that the “voting system doesn’t need to be changed” because it works well as is.
Asked for an example of a political figure he considers a model, Pace mentioned Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He said he hopes DeSantis runs for president.
Click on the above video to watch the full interview with Andrew Tammaro and Michael Pace on “Dateline Hamden.”
Click here to read a previous interview with Joshua Elliott and fellow Hamden state legislator Jorge Cabrera about their actions in this year’s session. Click on the above video to watch an interview with them on “Dateline Hamden” in the above video.
Isn't Josh Elliot the guy who wanted a $15 minimum wage but wasn't paying his employees that amount? That sums up all the voters need to know about that carnival barker