Lucy Gellman Photo
Wyman Monday at Women’s Campaign School’s opening session.
Connecticut’s lieutenant governor hasn’t ruled out a gubernatorial run — but she’s waiting for a tough budget season to play out before declaring her final decision.
Nancy Wyman offered that update Monday morning at the Women’s Campaign School at Yale (WCS).
Patti Russo, WCS founder and director.
Now in its 23rd year, the WCS commenced on Monday, and runs through Friday. This year’s program has 80 enrolled students from eight countries and over 30 states, all interested in political office. It takes place at the Yale Law School on Wall Street, where Director Patti Russo has held it for a number of years.
Wyman — herself a WCS alum — marched in to cheers and applause a little past 9:15 a.m. Before answering questions, she recalled her own entry into politics, while she was living in Tolland, Connecticut, with a husband and two kids, and found herself unhappy with the members on the Board of Education, so she ran for a seat and won it.
“I learned that you can make change,” she said, and went on to serve four terms in the state House of Representatives before becoming the first female state comptroller. “People kept saying: oh, you mean secretary of state!” she recalled to the audience, eliciting sighs of recognition. She served in the job for 16 years before becoming Dannel P. Malloy’s running mate and serving as lieutenant governor since 2011.
Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
After he speech, she took a question from Katherine Gilmore Richardson, chief of staff at the City Council of Philadelphia.
“Do you aspire to higher office?” Richardson asked from her seat in the front row.
“We’re still looking at it,” Wyman responded.
“I am far, from from a perfect candidate,” she had said earlier in the morning, when a student asked how Wyman remains “herself” in her current position, and would continue to do so in office down the road. “The only thing is making sure that your word is your bond, that you can face yourself in the mirror the next day … you want to be who you are. I want people to realize: you might not like everything I say. But I’m saying it because I believe in it.”
Wyman is considered an early frontrunner among an already crowded field of Democrats who may seek the party’s nomination in 2018 to succeed Malloy, who’s retiring as governor. The current comptroller, Kevin Lembo, for instance, had said he would wait for Wyman to declare her intentions before deciding whether he would run for governor; as Wyman has remained mum, Lembo has formed an exploratory committee.
After he speech, the Independent asked Wyman when she would decide on whether to run. She responded that she will wait until after the state legislature completes the difficult task, in an upcoming special session, of passing a two-year state budget in the face of a projected $5.1 billion deficit. As lieutenant governor, Wyman casts the tie-breaking vote in a chamber evenly split at 18 – 18 between Democrats and Republicans.
“We’ve gotta get the budget done,” Wyman said. “We’re considering [a campaign], but the budget comes first. I’ve told the other candidates: Please get going in the meantime.”
Wendy Tyson-Wood, who ran unsuccessfully for state representative Waterbury last year.
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to a previous interview with Wyman about her career, on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
And click here to listen to an interview with Patti Russo about the Women’s Campaign School, on WNHH radio’s “Love Babz Love Talk.”
I met plenty of smart, hardworking people, Democrats and Republicans, in my 30 years at the Capitol. Nancy is one of the best of them. But she, unlike Kevin Lembo, will have the albatross of the current administration's inability to right the state's economy.