Chion Wolf/WNPR Photo
Bill Curry.
For the first time in decades, Connecticut is in the national spotlight, not an afterthought, in a presidential primary election, as voters prepare to cast votes Tuesday.
The polls open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday for both the Democratic and Republican presidential contests. A poll released Monday showed Hillary Clinton barely ahead of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic contest, by 2 percentage points; while Donald Trump was far ahead of Republican opponents Ted Cruz and John Kasich. For information on where to vote, call the Registrar of Voters Office at (203) 946‑8035. Or click here to find your polling place. (The city polling place list can be found here.)
Connecticut supporters of Clinton, Sanders and Cruz made final pitches in appearances Monday on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
Former state Comptroller and two-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Curry argued that a Bernie Sanders presidency would “break the corporate hammerlock Congress” and support a needed “political revolution” centered first and foremost on ending “pay of play politics” through campaign finance reform. The influence of big money on elections prevents both parties from tackling major challenges like climate change and income inequality, Curry argued.
Curry knows the Clintons well. He worked as a presidential advisor in the Bill Clinton White House. Bill and Hlllary Clinton campaigned for Curry for governor.
Curry said his support for Sanders isn’t a personal knock on Clinton, whom he called “intelligent.” “I don’t thnk she’s dishonest. I think she is in deep denial about” the bipartisan “marriage with Wall Street and big business” of which she was a “principal architect” and beneficiary, he argued.
That said, Curry said he will definitely vote for Clinton in November if she wins the nomination. Though he characterized Clinton “to the right” of Cruz and Trump on foreign intervention, overall she is far superior when it comes to funding schools or childrens’ needs and filling U.S. Supreme Court vacancies.
Clinton’s Connecticut campaign director, Michael Mandell, said on the WNHH program that he believes the Sanders supporters will indeed fall in line with the Democratic nominee in November when, he predicted, his candidate will head the ticket.
“Because the alternative is Donald Trump,” Mandell said. “All Democrats can rally around that fact that [he is] dangerous. This election is too important.”
Hillary and Bill Clinton will have made three appearances in New Haven in the five days prior to Tuesday’s primary. Unlike Bernie Sanders — who attracted the biggest political crowd on the New Haven Green in over four decades with a Sunday night rally — the Clintons and their surrogates have mostly held intimate gatherings with one or two dozen people at a time.
Mandell said that the strategy has been to “show how issues impact real people” with roundtables on subjects like the minimum wage, paid leave, and gun control. “We know we can draw a crowd,” he claimed. “We want to speak to voters” and have Hillary Clinton converse with them personally.
In addition to representing Democratic concerns on specific issues, Clinton has articulated a broader vision of “breaking down barriers for working families,” “making sure people can get ahead” and “feel safe” in their communities.
Republican Ted Cruz’s most prominent Connecticut supporter, State Sen. Joe Markley, said he prefers Cruz over Kasich because Kasich is unelectable (“Kaisch has run in 40 primaries, or caucuses, and only won his home state”). He said he prefers Cruz over Trump because he has “thought through the principles” he espouses and has a track record of sticking to them.
For instance, Cruz led a move to shut down the federal government for 16 days in 2013 to seek the defunding of Obamacare. Markley said while he might not have agreed with the tactic, the effort showed that Cruz would stick up for his principles rather than succumb the Capitol culture of compromise.
Markley said Cruz has the best understanding of and commitment to Constitutional principles and a commitment to limit the size of government. He praised Cruz’s vow to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service. While the IRS wouldn’t ever probably disappear, Markley said, a simplified tax code could render much of its work unnecessary.
Cruz has been the leading voice in this primary in support of North Carolina’s controversial new law barring male-born transgender people from women’s restrooms and removing legal protections from LGBT discrimination. Markley said he agrees with Cruz’s stand; he argued that people already have“tremendous protections” from discrimination in existing laws and he considers it problematic to create new classes of protected people.
“He has stuck to what he says. I think he’s proven commodity,” Markley said.
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full episode of WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.”
Monday’s episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in partnership with Gateway Community College.