nothin Oz, “Full-Card Monte”: No Backroom Deal | New Haven Independent

Oz, Full-Card Monte”: No Backroom Deal

Paul Bass Photo

Oz Griebel in a post-debate “spin room.”

No, independent gubernatorial candidate Oz Griebel responded, he didn’t get a backroom handshake promising him a job in a Lamont administration in return for siphoning off Republican voters.

In fact, he argued, his Democratic and Republican opponents are siphoning off his voters: The middle-of-the-road majority.

Griebel was answering a question from a listener to WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven” program, on which he and running mate Monte Frank appeared Thursday.

The question, from Andy Wainwright: Pls ask Oz’ if he has an agreement with Ned to join his cabinet if he is successful in pulling enough votes from the republican and independent candidate Bob Stefanowski?”

The point of the question: As an unaffiliated candidate, is Griebel acting as a spoiler? As a former Republican, will he draw votes primarily away from Republican Stefanowski and perhaps hand the hotly contested Nov. 6 election to Democrat Ned Lamont?

Third-party candidates get that question all the time. Griebel was ready for it.

We have no deal with anybody,” he responded. I’m convinced the electorate is ready for an independent ticket. I didn’t do this to enhance my obituary down the road. I did it because we will win.

The idea of a spoiler? Let’s have an honest conversation. What’s the Democratic or Republican party done for you in 30 years? No net job growth. More taxes at higher rates. Out-migration. Under-investment in education and transportation.”

Griebel argued that he, in fact, represents the largest party” in Connecticut: unaffiliated voters. Stefanowski and Lamont are going after his voters, he said. That’s the group we’re most concerned about. That’s the group that’s growing.”

Connecticut has 871,743 voters who registered without a party, compared with 787,148 Democrats and 460,952 Republicans, whose numbers have been falling, according to the secretary of the state’s most recent statistics.

The parties … play this fear game. They try to convince people that they have to vote for the lesser of two evils instead of voting for the best candidate,” piped in lieutenant governor hopeful Frank, a former Democrat from Newtown who was dubbed full card Monte Python” in the unsolicited free-media sensation of this campaign season, a pro-Griebel/Frank rap number written and recorded by a 31-year-old Manchester man inspired by Griebel’s performance at a three-way gubernatorial debate.

Poll figures released to date have been inconclusive about whether more Griebel voters otherwise would choose Lamont or Stefanowski. Griebel said his campaign isn’t spending any money” trying to figure out that answer.

When I go out and knock on the door” of voters, Frank said, I don’t have a list of Democrats or unaffiliateds. I knock on every door. I don’t know whom I’m talking to: Democrat, Republican or unaffiliated.”

Time Out

Griebel and Frank meet the press on College Street.

When they knock on those doors, Griebel and Frank offer this pitch: A centrist ticket unbeholden to Democratic or Republican orthodoxies or interest groups would best be prepared to tackle the state’s structural deficit, code-blue transportation system, and need for more jobs. They offer a mix of positions from each party on hot-button issues: Pro-privatization of state assets and services, pro-gun control, pro-legalized recreational marijuana (with thoughtful minimum-age requirements, attention to how to detect driving under the influence, and commitment of revenues to substance abuse treatment). They’ve produced plans for spurring commercial-hemp agriculture and attacking the opioid epidemic (details here).

In recent weeks Griebel has offered a controversial position on perhaps the toughest challenge facing the next governor, a position that promptly earned rebukes from his opponents.

The issue: How to address a projected $4.4 billion two-year budget deficit and an estimated $80 billion in unfunded pension and retirement health liabilities.

Griebel proposes tapping the state’s rainy day fund — estimated to grow from $1.2 to $2 billion — to plug nearly half that hole. To criticism that that would empty needed reserves, Griebel responds that the current budget mess is the very definition of a rainy day.”

Then he proposes to pay nothing toward those unfunded pension and retiree health accounts for two years. That would close up more than $1 billion more.

Our mantra has to be, do the least amount of harm in this next biennium,’” he said.

His opponents argue that those tactics would repeat the very problem that sank Connecticut into its crisis in the first place: failing to pay enough into the funds each year. Lamont called it the exact type of kicking the can down the road that got us into this mess over the last 30 years…. It takes all the pressure off of the stakeholders to fix the structural deficit.”

In the WNHH interview, Griebel called those tactics part of a broader plan that tackles the underlying problems.

The alternatives to Griebel’s plan would involve cuts (like closing parks) that would create irreparable harm,” or tax hikes that would send a horrific signal to the private sector,” or both. He also noted that a concessions agreement with state unions prevents the state from laying off workers through 2020. (“I’m not an advocate of layoffs” anyway, he said.)

Griebel said he’d use the two-year pause on retiree fund contributions to channel new long-term revenue sources into pensions and health plans. He’d seek to sell state-owned office spaces and highway rest stops and use those proceeds to shore up the funds. He’d seek to have lottery proceeds permanently diverted to the pension fund.

In return for finding those new revenues, Griebel said, he’d seek changes in work rules, privatization of certain services, and moving certain state employees to defined contribution funds” from the state unions to take effect after 2020.

What leverage would he have to obtain those concessions?

The promise of a solvent pension and retiree medical fund, rather than a government that seeks to avoid its commitments by pleading broke in court, Griebel responded. Frank said he’d tell people, If you’re a retiree today and you’re getting your pension check, how confident are you [that] you will get it in 20 years?”

As a private attorney, Frank has represented municipal governments. He was asked if he would ever recommend to one of those clients that they pay nothing into their pension and retiree medical funds for two years.

Some cities and town government already do that, he responded.

What Oz is proposing is not indefinite,” Frank said. It’s an alternate funding source that will actually shore up those funds and make them more secure. Those funds are [practically] insolvent. The concept is not that we’re not going to pay into the fund. We’re going to buy us some time to look into an alternate funding source and give retirees the security so in 20 years they’ll be able to draw from the pensions.”

The Bottom Line

First Griebel and Frank need to get elected. That means convincing voters to skip seven rows of candidate names to mark box 1H, the very last box in the governor’s race column.

Griebel offered a slogan to direct voters to that box: If you’re concerned about Connecticut’s bottom line — your personal bottom line — go to the bottom line and vote for Griebel-Frank.”

Click on the video to watch the full interview with Oz Griebel and Monte Frank on WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven.”

And click on the above video to watch a leading Democrat and a leading Republican duke it out about their takes on this campaign season: party State Chairs J.R. Romano and Nick Balletto.

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