Ella’s Biographer Steps Up

Bysiewicz has been thinking about following in the footsteps of the late Gov. Ella T. Grasso since she wrote her senior thesis about her career in 1983 as a Yale student. She later published the thesis into a book entitled Ella: A Biography of Governor Ella Grasso.

Now Bysiewicz is pursuing that dream — as a candidate, not a book author. After eight years in the political wilderness, following unsuccessful runs for governor in 2010 and U.S. Senate in 2012, she is pursuing this year’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination amid a crowded field.

There’s a good chance that, in a year when the Women’s March has led record numbers of women to seek elected office, Bysiewicz will end up the lone woman facing several men in the Aug. 14 Democratic primary.

Ella T. Grasso’s example is inspiring Bysiewicz on that path. At least, for the most part.

Running Left

”[I]n the political arena, she was single-minded, strong-willed and vindictive. In public she was caring and compassionate.”
—From Bysewicz’s Ella: A Biography.

“Her experience is relevant today because when she took office, she was dealing with a deficit that was huge at the time. It was $500 million. And she right away had to deal with a very big deficit. I believe she was able to do it effectively because she understood what families were going through in Connecticut,” Bysiewicz said of Grasso during an appearance on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

“She was the daughter of immigrants,” she continued. ​“She grew up in an ethnic, blue-collar working-class town of Windsor Locks. She was also very well educated. She went to Choate. She went to Mount Holyoke. But she was somebody who related to all types of people in Connecticut. She had not only the financial expertise of being an economics graduate student and also running the secretary of the state’s office. She also had compassion for people.”

Kind of like … Susan Bysiewicz?

Bysiewicz was born at Yale-New Haven Hospital, the granddaughter of Polish and Greek immigrants. She grew up on a potato farm in Middletown. She went to Yale. She served as secretary of the state, from 1999 through 2010.

And like Grasso, who served as governor from 1975 through 1980, she has a reputation as a fighter, as someone who works relentlessly to build support person by person at the town committee and party delegate and donor levels, to elbow opponents out of the way or air slash-and-burn ads against them if necessary.

Take a close look at Bysiewicz’s book, though, and you see some critiques as well.

In tackling the deficit, Grasso did not consider adding an income tax; 14 years later, progressive Democrats succeeded (in conjunction with independent Gov. Lowell P. Weicker) in instituting one.

Bysiewicz faults Grasso for not being willing to take an unpopular, needed stand at the time.

She also distinguishes her ideology from that of Grasso, who came from the Democratic Party’s conservative wing.

“I believe I have more progressive ideals and ideas than she did,” Bysiewicz said. ​“But it was a different time. She was Catholic; I’m Catholic. I’m also pro-choice; she was not. I think our income tax has been a good thing for our state. She didn’t.”

Bysiewicz staked out positions in lock step with the ​“Resistance” agenda animating the Bernie Sanders wing of the party this year (although she did support Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election).

One of her earliest public supporters has been Hamden State Rep. Josh Elliott, who has emerged as the party’s most visible Sanderista at the legislature.

Among the positions Bysiewicz listed in the WNHH interview:

• She favors instituting highway tolls while cutting the gas tax.
• She favors universal health care and any and all moves toward a single-payer system.
• She favors raising the 5.99 percent income tax rate on millionaires.
• She’d continue the state’s pro-immigrant ​“sanctuary” policies, even if that meant the Trump administration follows through on threats to withhold federal funding.
• She favors legalizing marijuana.
• She favors a ban on bump stocks and ​“ghost guns.”
• She supports state efforts to close the federal ​“carried interest” loophole.
• She favors having Connecticut join a federal National Popular Vote compact.

Asked how she’d tackle the state’s crushing debt and pension obligations, she spoke of growing the economy rather than relying on deep cuts to services.

She spoke of her experience practicing business law as giving her a deep understanding of what it takes for employers to set up shop here. ​“I spent the last eight years helping Democrats win and helping businesses create thousands of jobs in Connecticut,” she said.

Businesses want predictability from state government, including budgets passed on time, she said; she touted her experience working with both parties as secretary of the state to argue that she can do a better job than current Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in governing in a bipartisan fashion.

She also spoke of building up the state’s transportation infrastructure as crucial for luring and retaining jobs. Toward that end, she supports the ​“lockbox” that would guarantee that tolls and other transportation-related fees go toward fixing roads and bridges and mass transit.

Message To New York: Come Home!

“Mrs. Grasso liked to think of herself as a surrogate mother not only for her staff and colleagues but for the entire state.”
—From Bysewicz’s Ella: A Biography.

Bysiewicz isn’t the kind of person to dwell on past mistakes.

Asked three times what lessons she drew from her 2010 and 2012 losses, she came up with only this: ​“I learned, hey, it’s difficult to run for something if the whole party is against you.”

Rather, she’s from the school of get-right-back-up-after-an-embarrassment, brush-yourself-off, and dive-back-in …

… when the time is right.

Bysiewicz said 2018 is that time. She is the only Democratic candidate who has won statewide office, she noted. And she won it three times. Thanks perhaps to her name recognition with voters, she ranks among the top Democrats in polls. She argued she has the best shot at not only capturing the nomination but beating a Republican in what promises to be a tough general election for her party.

Asked why she’s running, she mentioned her two grown daughters.

“Our daughters both work in New York City,” she said. ​“I would love to make our state a place where they’ll say, ​‘Hey mom, I want to come back to Connecticut and live in New Haven. I found this really great-paying job.’”

One of her daughters, meanwhile, wrote this about her mom on Facebook on International Women’s Day in 2017:

“I have to dedicate a post to my biggest role model and OG boss lady, my mom Susan Bysiewicz. She spent 20 years in public service, all while raising 3 kids. I can’t count how many events she went to, how many people she met with or how many phone calls I heard her on during that time period. All I know is that she was home for dinner every single night, no matter what. Mom, thank you for showing me that a woman can be everything. I love you.”

Click on or download the above audio file or Facebook Live video below for the full interview with Susan Bysiewicz on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.”

WNHH interviews with other gubernatorial candidates:

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Guy Smith on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to read an article about the interview.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sean Connolly. Click here for an article about the interview.

Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video to hear the full episode of ​“Dateline New Haven” with independent candidates Oz Griebel and Monte Frank. Click here to read a story about the interview.

Click above to hear the full WNHH interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Harris. Click here to read a story about that interview.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below for the full interview with gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to read a story about the interview.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Luke Bronin on WNHH FM, in which he also discussed, among other topics, the need for more vo-tech education and raining programs for coding and other high-tech jobs, as well as public-private job-creation partnerships. Click here to read an article about the interview.

Click on or download the above audio file or Facebook Live video below to listen to the full interview with Joe Ganim. Click here to read an article about the interview.

Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below for an interview with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Dita Bhargava on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to read a story about the interview. Click on or download the above audio file or on the Facebook Live video to below to hear an interview with GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Handler on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. Click here for a story about that interview. Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear an interview with GOP gubernatorial candidate Prasad Srinivasan on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to read a story about that interview. Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Obsitnik. Click here to read a story about that interview. Click on or download the above audio file to hear a previous WNHH FM ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Ganim. Click here for a story about that interview. Click on or download the above audio file to a an interview with GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Boughton on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program; and click here to read a story about that interview. Click on or download the above audio file to hear an interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Drew; and click here to read a story about the interview.