No Holds Barred: An honest look at the West Hartford GOP, and their failure to win Municipal elections

Finally, as promised, I’ve completed part one of what will most likely be a series on the West Hartford Municipal elections and the West Hartford Republican Party – from the view of unconnected and uncompromised Republican (this means I don’t owe anyone political favors) so I can pretty much tell it like it is without fear of losing my place in the popularity poll, or worrying about money flow and favors.

So, if you are a Republican who believes that Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment is meant to serve as cover from airing internal party criticism, then you’ve probably come to the wrong place. Truth be told, there are more Benedict Arnolds in our midst than saints, that’s for certain. And since yours truly has taken a few personal hits during this election and after, I guess it’s more than fair to fire back. Phasers locked and ready!

And why, oh why you may ask? Let me get into this a little bit. First, West Hartford Republicans don’t know the first thing about activism. Activism is the single most important ingredient to shaping public opinion. When public opinion is on your side, you can pass meaningful and productive legislation (or small town ordinances), improve development conditions, and win elections. There is no machine here in West Hartford that works day in and day out to get out the word on the street. Instead, you have well-to- do, stuffy, sweater wearing types that wouldn’t dare lift a finger or get their hands dirty unless it mean signing a check (and you don’t even get much of that).

Where are the young Republicans? Where are the press releases from the party chairman on this or that issue? Where are surveys, fliers, websites, polls, rallies, special meetings, letters to the editors, signs, newsletters, email blasts, regular district meetings, coordinators sessions – quite frankly – where is ANYTHING?

The answer is - it's no where.

The Democrats on any given day can make a few phone calls and get ten or fifteen people out in front of Blue Back Square holding signs; we would be lucky to get one or two. We have no base on operations from which to conduct public influence. And what’s worse is that we have no one willing to even put it together. What a shame. With dozens of people waiting in the wings to be coordinated, the West Hartford GOP disenfranchises them with the usual “sure, give me your number, we’ll call you.” And they never do. This has also been my experience. I personally heard the same rhetoric from Herb Shepherdson several years ago, and Kevin Connors this year.

Back to the election…

It’s pretty clear to even the casual observer that the West Hartford Republican Party had no winning strategy from the start. From A to Z (and mirroring the above) there was no organization, no planning, and there was a total lack of coordination. Campaigns are run on issues and platforms. And these past two years, the Democratic Party gave Republicans the golden calf on a silver plate, and party leaders dropped the ball. Five months ago, the West Hartford Taxpayers Association orchestrated a referendum that sent the Democratic Party reeling back on their heels. This was the ultimate spring-board for success, and yet you barely heard a word about taxes in this campaign from GOP hopefuls. Or if you did, there was no outrage, no sense of urgency whatsoever.

But let’s be honest, the first mistake was poor candidate selection. If campaigns are won and lost on issues, surely you would hope that you would select candidates capable of understanding and articulating their positions and the positions of the party platform in public. Since the public is easy to forgive and forget, challengers have the job of convincing the public to change course; they have to establish a sense of outrage about the current state of things. With few exceptions, this slate of candidates acted as if they were incumbents, sitting with a 3-1 majority. The candidates for the most part were nice people – folks you’d absolutely want living next door to you – but perhaps not those who’d you’d select to deliver concerns at a podium.

In my conversations with the Chairman of the West Hartford Republican Party, he angrily reminded me that there were not dozens of people knocking down his door to run. And I’m sure that smart people look at the demographic ratios, and the odds and statistics of past races and figure that it’s a long road (to Tipperary) and victory will cost personal sacrifice beyond the norm.

The problem here is that the GOP should have been recruiting “A player” candidates all year long. Courting, planning, grooming, coaching and positioning credible individuals with person success records and real passion to run for office. But instead they did nothing. And the Party Chairman and his friends did nothing visible to make this happen. Recruitment is part of the game. You can’t tell me that even with 20,000 registered Republicans that they couldn’t find more a few interested people, a veteran and a few upstart kids with young children (and I’ll get to that part later). In short, they sat on their arses and talked to a few wheelers and dealers that wanted representation on the Council on behalf of their firms.

The second mistake was lack of organized activism at the grass roots level (which I touch on above). If you look at the successful outcome organized by the West Hartford Taxpayers Association and you compare their efforts in contrast to that of the West Hartford Republicans, you can see an incredible difference - not just in outcome by at all levels of public debate. WHTA was everywhere, in the newspaper, writing letters, making phone calls, using the media, and shaping the debate. In this election, you saw very little of that.

I can tell you that in the weeks preceding the election, I received nearly a half dozen mailings from Democratic candidates and at least six phone calls from Democrats urging me to vote for them. Whether or not they were paid or volunteer is not the issue, it’s that they had an effective campaign strategy with resources to help make it effective.

Do you realize that my household did not receive ONE phone call urging me to vote Republican? NOT ONE. Talk about a failure of organization, that’s about as basic as it gets.

It’s true that some people like Tim Brennan are rumored to have spend $25,000 (we won’t know until it’s filed), but based on what I saw from Republicans, he probably could have spent one tenth of this amount and still beat out the GOP by a significant margin.

Why?

The answer is lack of a coherent message on the Republican side. Even though I was following and listening clearly to everything written and said, I never could quite interpret what the Adler-Davidoff-Martin-Clark-Seder team stood for – alone or together the conversations were mixed. My own opinions, thoughts and words filled the void; I found myself making a better case for their election, when from them, all you heard was silence. Case in point, over the last few days, I spoke with at least seven Republicans who told me that they didn’t vote – at all. When I asked why, they all said the same thing (plus or minus a few points against one or two candidates) which was that they didn’t see a difference between Republicans and Democrats this time around. Moreover, they found the Republicans who did run – uninspiring and inarticulate on the issues that mattered to them most.

In my discussions with GOP leaders, I found that even today they still don’t seem to understand what went wrong. I was told that they couldn’t come out kicking and screaming because the residents would not elect zealots to the Council. My response to this warped thinking is “rubbish”. If you cannot even motivate your own base to vote for you, then how can you expect independents and “majority seekers” to side with you during an election? Humble and quiet is a ridiculous strategy.

Now, I came down pretty hard on Kelly Clark in my open letter to her but clearly it was warranted. I will also go on record to state that the feedback on Kelly by several members of her own team (whether they like it or not – I mean several) is that she wasn’t cut out to run. Many of them were outraged with her performance in the debates, and she was deemed “timid” by candidates that went door to door with her (when she did go door to door).

Now the chairman and others made the excuse that she had two children at home, which sort of begs the question – then why did she run? Council meetings, strategy sessions and so forth take up a lot of time. If you don’t have the time to commit to a position where you are at the beckon call of the demanding schedule of serving in this capacity, then what business to you have in this race?

Kelly came in fourth without doing much. Fact is that if she had actually got off her duff, and put effort into it, she would have found herself on the Council, and Visconti would be out. All she had to do is do a few photo ops with the kids and she would have picked up votes from dozens of soccer moms across West Hartford. The world says that she was a substitute for her husband who couldn’t run because of a work-related conflict of interest. That’s only speculation since I don’t know the details. I can only comment on what I heard and saw from her as a candidate. Maybe she didn’t want to win. She certainly didn’t campaign like she wanted to win.

If you look at the end numbers of the election, you can make an excellent case that she sort of stiffed those folks that put her up there to run by accepting nomination and folding. A poor debate performance is forgivable (even for someone in a career who is trained in debate and public speaking) but the lack of effort is unforgivable. What she and Peter Martin (who awoke a few weeks before the end of the election) have to realize is that early on the pace is set in an election, and you need to be out in front from the start, since you know that the science of campaigning always tells you that the lead narrows a few weeks out, and if you are behind or off the radar from the start than you’ll probably lose in the end.

Why do I have the right to say anything? Let me tell you. I’m a resident, and I pay taxes in this town, I am outraged, and I was counting on Clark and Martin and my party to WIN this election on my behalf and take back the majority. I was let down. I have a right to be angry with people who I was counting on to make my cases, and make a difference. Now look at what we have. Don’t tell me I don’t have a right to voice my opinion about this election and the candidates that ran (or barely tried to run). I have a right to complain – ask the question – Is this the best we could have done? Is this the best you could have done as a candidate? It’s noble to fight and lose, it’s not noble to sit back and watch things unfold without making the effort to effect change – particularly when you’ve been nominated by fellow citizens to do so.

Giving credit where it’s due – Mr’s. Alder and Davidoff campaigned every weekend at the grocery stores and devoted a lot of time to talking issues with residents. I witnessed this first hand. It’s no surprise that these guys finished first and second given their commitment, and that they had party insider support (more so Adler) than anyone else. Peter M was considered Al Turco’s protégé but he also had Al’s soft touch which is great if you’re on a high-powered winning team seeking re-election with clear sense of confidence from your constituents. Peter sort of ran as an add-on candidate. Perhaps the lesson here for the GOP is to not run upstart attorneys as candidates – they are low risk, low impact players that don’t resonate well with the public.

Michael Seder campaigned his heart out. He went door to door in the rain, stood out holding his sign in the wind, and took his personal message up and down the streets of West Hartford. For a man who is up there in age, he put our younger candidates to shame. The problem is that he did a lot of this work on his own. If Seder had a campaign team with even a handful of young Republicans and concerned voters, he might have had a better shot at being elected. You cannot be (just about) the sole person taking your message to the residents. This is where an active Republican Town Committee would have come in handy. He seemed pretty much on his own through most of this election. You have to wonder if he asked for help, and if he did what kind of response he got from the Party.

Another side note on Clark and Martin is warranted here. Folks who I talked with had very negative things to say about two people running for office who just recently had children. The negative perception of leaving your infants at home with a baby-sitter while you campaign or attend Council meetings didn’t sit well with moms and dads in West Hartford. As a father of an infant and a young child (and yes I write my comments during their sleeping hours and publish whenever), I was outraged at how someone could leave their wonderful child to run around town and seek election to office. To me, these two had their priorities mixed up from the beginning. And whoever was dumb enough to recruit them should be ashamed of themselves.

Martin and Clark belong with their children. This is one of the best times in their lives and they already have lost valuable time when they should have been at home catering to their children’s needs, and enjoying the endearing moments. In reality, it’s a blessing that they lost. God has done them a favor that they may never come to understand. Enjoy the time with your babies; they aren’t babies for very long. In both your cases, a loss was a big win for you personally.

One person I hadn't touched on here and is worthy of note is Theresa McGrath. First, Mrs. McGrath deserves an incredible amount of credit for her personal commitment and dedication to the Republican Party. No, she didn't pull out a win. Frankly, the Town Clerk position was never going to be a position that Republicans could have seriously vied for given their minority demographic, and daunting uphill battle for Council and BOE slots. Paid, civil service roles tend to go to the Dems unless demographics tell a different story, or a popular incumbent mayor gets involved.

Mrs. McGrath did more over the past year than any of the Councilman or Republican politcos did over the past two years. She organized citizens via the West Hartford Taxpayers Association and helped repel a massive budget increase that would have increased taxes and increased spending to near double digit figures. The outward angry response by Democrats reached a fervor pitch unprecedented in West Hartford politics. The level of hate and mean-spirited rhetoric spewed by her opponents reached dropped the civility of the debate to an all time low - particularly for small time local politics. She faced intimidation, public humiliation, nasty scrutiny, personal attacks on nearly every level. I could go on and speak to how even her children received mistreatment, but I don't want to go too far down that road.

Notwithstanding, she sacrificed her family time, her career, and created a personal hardship to make this happen. If that wasn't enough, she helped fill an empty spot on the Republican ticket by running for Town Clerk. West Hartford Republicans haven't seen that level of personal commitment and dedication in God knows how many years. And I have to say, that from this writer's perspective, she didn't receive the support and respect that her level of commitment deserved. This writer wants to thank her personally for what she's done for all of us.

If the chairman is correct in his assessment that "no one is knocking down their door to run" - do you think that given how Mrs. McGrath was treated by her own team over the past year gives residents a warm and fuzzy feeling about jumping on board the GOP candidate express train? And for someone to use the phrase "damaged goods" is pretty pathetic. Think about how families benefited from her efforts. Think about how the party insiders turned a sure-win issue into tomato soup. Frankly, it's an amazing turn of events.

I’ve said a lot here, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

And I recognize that I haven’t offered a great number of solutions to the woes of this dysfunctional GOP Party here in West Hartford. I’m putting together a post that offers suggestions and the party leaders can accept it or choose to ignore it. If they ignore it, my recommendation is that a group of concerned citizens that want to see measures for change taken work hand and foot to uproot those controlling the Republican Party in town. Leaving this group at the helm guarantees poor opposition to Democratic incumbents, and steady tax increases for years and years to come.

Whether Adler, Visconti, or Davidoff want to participate in the formation of a new Republican Party in West Hartford is unknown. But all three of them will show their cards soon enough.



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