Rick Elser had fought a David versus Goliath battle for mayor of New Haven. Goliath had won yet again . Republican Elser, pictured left getting election results, hadn’t even been able to afford a slingshot with which to fight the political giant that was Democratic Mayor John DeStefano.
Across town Tuesday night, 25th Ward GOP aldermanic candidate Tom Malone sat with nearly 20 optimistic supporters after fighting and losing his race. Malone’s crew, enjoying fried seafood and French fries and various beverages, was ready for Round 2.
The party held on to its own elected position in New Haven Tuesday night, Arlene DePino’s Ward 18 aldermanic seat. Otherwise, early returns showed Richter with barely 20 percent of the vote.
And unlike the Democrats, the Republicans had three small post-election gatherings, not one big celebration. Richter’s and Malone’s post-mortems offered two views on the future of New Haven’s plodding pachyderms.
The View From Richter’s
H. Richter Elser, who is also Republican town chairman, talked with a quiet resolve about the GOP in New Haven as he sat, alone at his table except for a reporter, at Richter’s, a downtown pub he founded but no longer runs.
“With the resources we had available, we ran a good race,” he said. “You do what you can with the resources you have.” He said his goal was “to have a presence on Election Day” and his party had met that goal, despite its loss.
Those resources, according to Richter, were a war chest of from $4,500 to $5,000 and “from five to 15” volunteers against the much more solvent incumbent. He reminded the reporter that the last Republican to sit in mayor’s chair was William C. Celentano, who left office in early 1954.
At that point, Elser’s cell phone rang. The voice on the other end told Richter that he had been thrashed in the 21st Ward with 207 votes for DeStafano to 12 for him, and 24 for Green Party candidate Ralph Ferrucci.
He flinched, the first emotion he had shown. He said the numbers didn’t add up to the total votes cast as given by the caller, but still…
Elser said he works on a contract basis and his work load was twice what he had anticipated, so he had less time to devote to the mayoral campaign than he thought he would.
He said he wasn’t able to get 200 people to donate $25 each, the criterion needed to qualify for public funding. Some of his supporters in a previous run against U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro were afraid of having their names on a public donors list and others lived outside New Haven and weren’t willing to contribute to a local campaign, he said.
He cited the voter-registration statistics that showed unaffiliated and independent voters at 45 percent of the electorate. But even with these facts, he said the future of the Republican party in New Haven is “good.” He said it is up to the party to energize those independent voters.
“The difficulty is to figure out how to get people to participate” in local politics, he said. The party is beginning to attract people who want the GOP to be a vehicle to offer alternatives.
Elser said the party has to find more “guys like Tom Malone who are giving the neighborhoods a voice. We need to be reaching out to give the neighborhoods a voice.”
View From Delaney’s
If Elser is unsure how to energize the electorate, Malone is not and is ready to jump in with both feet.
Malone, at left in the photo at his post-election party at Delaney’s in Westville center, was fresh from what he called a moral victory in the 25th Ward, despite losing to incumbent Ina Silverman. He said more than 400 non-Republicans had voted for him.
He said his campaign was viewed seriously enough by the Democrats that they sent in the mayor and other aldermen to campaign for Silverman, and “took their eye off the ball” in the 10th Ward. That led to the surprising victory by Green Party candidate Allan Brison in that East Rock neighborhood.
Malone, who moved to New Haven from Clinton only in March, said he was ready to carry the ball for his party .
The GOP has been inactive in the city, he said. “I hope to help organize an alternative voice around the city, a real competition of ideas, to help identify the ways to go and get people excited.”
He said he anticipated a revolt against escalating taxes and thought his party could form a nucleus of that revolt.
Both Elser and Malone talked about the need to break the stranglehold the Democrats have on the mayor’s office and the aldermanic board.
DeStafano said New Haven had competition for office, but in a different way from other towns.
“The two-party system plays out differently in New Haven,” he said.
He said the competition comes in the form of late-summer primaries in some wards, such as Westville’s 27th, and in November contests in others, such as the 25th.
DeStefano Tuesday night agreed that incumbents “are tough to beat,” having resources that challengers may not enjoy.
About his GOP challenger, he said, “You’ve got to run a campaign in order to win.”
Malone agreed, saying it takes a support base and money to run a campaign.
He said he was ready to run such a campaign.
In a few short months, “I think we did an amazing job of building a base of support” in his neighborhood and would use that to recruit people who feel the one-party rule will lead to higher taxes and eventually people leaving New Haven because they can no longer afford the taxes.
“I am not going away,” Malone said.