The long political trek towards Connecticut’s April 26 presidential primary hit Westville Saturday as both Democratic camps landed on the same block.
Earlier this week, campaigns for Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both opened formal headquarters on Whalley Avenue. Hillary for America volunteers and organizers are operating out of the second floor of 300 Whalley Ave., a building owned by Mayor Toni Harp’s son’s real estate company; while Sanderistas, representatives of CT Progressives and Bernie 2016 field organizers work out of 845 Whalley Ave. in Westville Village.
Saturday, the two camps ended up not a mile, but just a couple of doors, apart. A little after 4 p.m., the Clinton campaign brought out Connecticut’s party elite to a launch event in Westville Village, a political turf war turning personal as they tried to lay claim to a two-block radius of Westville, and then to the city itself.
A “Mom” In The White House
Lucy Gellman Photo
Pettigrew, a Hillary supporter, and Harp.
At Kehler Liddell Gallery, close to 200 Clinton fans packed the space, gathering to hear notables like Mayor Toni Harp, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut State Senator Edward Kennedy, Jr., former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd and others speak as surrogates of the former secretary of state.
Arranged by Ward 29 Democratic co-chair Audrey Tyson, the event focused on recruiting new volunteers and energizing seasoned ones as the primary race hits its final stretch.
“All of us worked so hard in the ‘60s and the ‘70s to create the world that we have today,” Harp said of the reason she is supporting Clinton. “A world that actually allows women to rise to the highest office in our nation. A world in which African-Americans and Hispanics and people of color can be assured that they can go to school, that they can get good jobs, and that they don’t have to deal with discrimination — and if they do, that there’s a way to deal with that. Our young people have forgotten about what it took to get us here today. One of the things that we have got to do is help our young people understand — help women understand, frankly — that this race is about taking us farther and about recognizing from whence we came. On April 26, New Haven has got to do what it has always done. Turn out and vote for Hillary!”
“You know, it’s easy to use platitudes and sound bytes that we all love to hear, but it’s harder to govern” she added. “You really have to support someone that’s going to get the job done. Someone who understands what this world is about. I am saying to everyone who has ever supported me that it is now time to support Hillary. It is now time to put a mom in the White House.”
Wade.
As others spoke — DeLauro urging volunteers to go “full steam ahead” to the 26th, Dodd warning that a Sanders run for the White House would end in a Trump presidency and a rollback of every policy Obama has implemented in the past eight years, and Wyman joking that her head might explode if she heard any iteration of the word YUGE again — Clinton volunteer Jacqueline Kozin walked around the room, putting out a call for volunteers and passing out clipboards on which potential phone bankers could add their information. One phone-banker, Sheila Wade, stopped for a moment to discuss her enthusiasm for the candidate.
“I think she’s just solid,” she said as she encouraged a friend to sign up as well. “She has social justice in her DNA. She’s the quintessential civic person.”
Focus On Change
Yarboro, at right, goes over the drill.
Meanwhile, mid-afternoon sunlight streamed into the new New Haven Sanders HQ, a now-defunct antiques shop whose former life surfaces every time volunteers look up at a turquoise, angel-dotted ceiling. Sanders champion Bonita Yarboro was training a 3 p.m. shift of five new recruits, each of them preparing for a three-hour canvas around different New Haven neighborhoods.
There for most of the office staff’s 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. day, Yarboro didn’t seem tired. Invigorated, and definitely feeling the Bern, was more like it. As Sarah Ganong and self-described “super volunteer” Joshua Elliott popped their earbuds in for another round of phone banking, Yarboro primed the volunteers, all East Rock residents eager to sway voters toward Sanders, on what to say.
“We are canvassing in the community to remind people of the upcoming Connecticut primary, OK?” she said, pulling out a script that the volunteers were to carry with them and refer to at each door. “If people give you a yes [that they’re voting], what you say is: ‘I’m here because it’s more important than ever that you support Senator Sanders, who is an honest leader, and who has spent his lifetime fighting injustice and inequality. Today’s CEOs are getting richer while most of us work harder just to get by. This is a moment of truth. Do you support Bernie Sanders for president?’”
Seasoned at the craft of the canvass — the Morris Cove resident has volunteered for Sanders in New Hampshire and Massachusetts — Yarboro then went over the way volunteers could rate potential voters, on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 for definite Sanders, 2 for thinking Bernie, 3 for on the fence, 4 for leaning Clinton and 5 for strong Clinton), reviewed voter affiliation guidelines and handed out voter registration forms. She reminded canvassers always to ask the basics: Did folks know there was a primary? Were they registered as Democrat or unaffiliated? Did they know that they could change from unaffiliated to Democrat until noon on April 25? Did they have a way of getting to the polls?
Elliott and Ganong.
When five heads nodded in unison to say we’ve got it, she sent them on their way. For the third time that day, the office fell back to Ganong’s and Elliott’s overlapping voices, each asking Connecticut voters who had picked up their phones: Could they count on them for a Sanders vote on April 26th? By Saturday afternoon, the office had seen a volunteer turnout of around 15, with more expected that night and Sunday.
When asked about their support for Sanders, each of the 3 p.m. volunteers had said the same thing: that he’d been “their guy” since his April 30, 2015, announcement that he was running for president. Elliott, a nonpracticing attorney who runs The Common Bond Market in Shelton, lives in Hamden, and spends the majority of his time volunteering at the Westville office, had a different take.
“For me, it’s about money in politics and campaign finance,” he said. “He’s the only candidate committed to overturning it, and to making sure everyone knows there’s a problem. Ignoring it is what concerns me the most. His goal is not to be the head honcho. He’s using his position as a bully pulpit, like FDR, to change the conversation.”
“Hillary’s kind of the comfort food of the American people,” he added. “He’s kind of the portion of vegetables that you don’t specifically want but you need. You can’t eat comfort food forever.”