Melissa Bailey Photo
As the statewide party establishment lines up behind his main Democratic rival, gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont gathered his troops in New Haven and dispatched them to start knocking on doors of “regular” voters statewide.
That happened at an official opening party Thursday evening at Lamont’s campaign headquarters on Orange Street.
Even though Lamont is confident he’s got enough support to land on the primary ballot, it looks like he won’t win his party’s endorsement at the State Democratic Convention on May 21 – 22. A candidate needs 15 percent of convention delegate votes to make it to the primary without petitioning, and the candidate with the majority of convention support gets the party’s nod.
In advance of the convention, candidates have been courting members of Democratic town committees (DTCs) from all corners of the state, because most of those people become convention delegates. Former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, Lamont’s main party rival, has been racking up these endorsements left and right. As of Thursday, Malloy had announced endorsements from 32 Democratic town committees, 43 town committee chairs, and 74 elected officials (active and retired), according to a spokesman. Asked to provide those same information, Lamont’s campaign said the figures were not available.
New Haven’s Carl Feen (at right in photo), a member of Lamont’s campaign finance committee, admitted the candidate “is not planning on” beating Malloy at the convention.
“It would be nice to win the convention — he’s not going to,” Feen said.
“Dan’s been around a long time. He knows the players. He’s been very supportive of the party for years,” Feen explained. Several supporters said Malloy got a head start on delegate support. He beat Mayor John DeStefano at the 2006 party convention, when they were both running for governor. —as early as August 2008, he was courting party insiders over dim sum in Denver. (DeStefano then beat Malloy in a party primary.)
While “Dan’s got the old boy network,” Lamont is getting support from “regular people,” Feen asserted.
Lamont said he faces an “uphill climb” to win over party insiders at the convention. He rallied roughly 50 visitors to join the campaign in time for a canvassing kickoff on May 16, when volunteers will start knocking on Democratic voters’ doors to garner support for the Aug. 10 primary.
The campaign’s outsider message resonated with Teresa Barton (at left in top photo with Lamont), who traveled all the way from the northeast corner of the state, aka “the boonies,” to attend the 6 p.m. New Haven event. She said she drove nearly two hours in rush-hour traffic to reach Lamont’s headquarters, where she hoped to pick up bumper stickers and campaign signs. Barton is the DTC chair in the town of Killingly, which will send only seven delegates to the state convention. She said she recently got elected there on an anti-establishment platform.
What makes Lamont, a Greenwich millionaire self-financing his campaign, an anti-establishment outsider?
Barton said Lamont earned outsider cred during his 2006 run against U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman. At that time, party insiders frowned on a primary challenge, but Lamont “proved the establishment wrong” when he beat Lieberman in a primary, she said. (Lamont then lost in the general, with Lieberman running as an independent candidate.) Barton said the Democratic Party “suffers from a sclerosis of the imagination,” and that Lamont’s candidacy energized the party and boosted voter ranks.
She said she sees his current race through the same lens — an outsider candidate “challenging the establishment.”
New Haven activist Aaron Goode, who showed up Thursday after getting a campaign robo call, said he is undecided on the governor’s race. He was more skeptical of the Greenwich millionaire’s campaign.
Lamont spent over $16 million out of his own pocket to finance his 2006 U.S. Senate run. He has made the case on the stump that the party should choose him over Malloy — with whom he shares most positions — because he has the personal wealth to take on wealthy Republican candidates like Tom Foley.
“I think Ned is relying on his bank account to get him through the primary — for better or for worse,” said Goode. “Some grassroots activists might hold that against him.”
Unlike in some communities, politically active New Haveners from different camps appear to be lining up behind the Greenwich entrepreneur.
Thursday’s event drew about 75 people to the Orange Street headquarters, including members of the campaign staff, which has 19 full-time workers. New Haveners in attendance included Board of Aldermen President Carl Goldfield and Katrina Jones, schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo (at left in photo), departing Hillhouse Principal Lonnie Garris, and former Newhallville Alderwoman Gwen Newton (in foreground in photo). Mayor John DeStefano, who was not present Thursday, is also believed to be leaning toward Lamont.
The crowd included some surprises — people who worked against Lamont last time around.
One such surprise was Sandra McKinnie, who worked a paid job as the coordinator of African-American affairs for the 2006 Lieberman campaign. Now she’s supporting Lamont. She said the reason was rather simple: He called.
She said she knows Malloy, but Lamont approached her several weeks ago and asked for her support.
“That did it, in itself,” McKinnie said. Lamont will stand up for “urban people,” for the single mothers she deals with in her job at the Community Action Agency, she said.
McKinnie was asked what made the Greenwich businessman more urban than Malloy, who served as the mayor of Stamford for 14 years. She said Lamont showed interest in her work and listened to her. “This man has reached to know.”
Melissa Bailey Photo
Hill Alderman Jorge Perez (pictured with Lamont) was another New Havener who previously backed a Lamont opponent. Like McKinnie, Perez said he decided to support Lamont this time in part because he called.
In 2006, Perez supported Lieberman over Lamont in the 2006 Senate primary. In the governor’s race he picked Malloy against DeStefano, who got crushed in the general election against Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
Perez said he’s fully behind Lamont this time. Thursday was his fourth Lamont campaign event, he said. His first was when Lamont invited him to an American Civil Liberties Union dinner a few months ago.
“He’s gone out of his way to reach out to me,” Perez said.
“I have a lot of friends in this camp,” Perez added. “I think Lamont’s a great guy. I think Malloy is a nice guy, too, but you’ve got to pick somebody.”
Perez is one of 81 delegates to the State Democratic Convention from New Haven, the biggest bloc from any town or city.
“I think they’re leaning towards Lamont, but we haven’t taken a straw poll,” said New Haven DTC chair Susie Voigt, reached by phone in California Thursday evening.
Voigt said she would have attended the event if she had been in town. She said she would not characterize Lamont as “anti-establishment.” He didn’t grow up with the Democratic Party, and “isn’t an inside baseball player,” she said, “but certainly folks across the state know him [from the 2006 primary] and don’t see him as an outsider.”
She cited two different reasons for supporting him. First, she said, “he’s certainly shown himself to be a dedicated Democrat who is able to address issues that arise in a timely way,” issues like the Iraq war. “There’s a boldness to that.” Second, “He is also in the position to be able to take on Republican candidates.” In a year where Republican frontrunner and millionaire Foley poses formidable opposition, Voigt said Democrats can’t afford to focus only on talking to Democrats before the primary.
For that reason, she said, “I was really pleased when Lamont made a decision to not only talk to town committee and elected officials,” but to run TV ads that reach a wider audience. Lamont started running TV ads on April 9, his campaign said.
Meanwhile, Malloy is moving forward with more modest spending. He’s seeking public campaign finance, which means capped expenditures and donations.
Just as Lamont refused to cede the convention, Malloy declared he has not ceded the city.
In a recent appearance at Stella Blues on Crown Street, Malloy solicited small donations from New Haven voters. He painted Lamont as an out-of-touch millionaire. Malloy, who grew up with seven siblings in working-class Stamford, said he has a strong base of support with the common man. Malloy said he is getting “a lot of support from rank and file Democrats, not necessarily on town committees, but in its [the city’s] churches, schools.
“Everyday people,” he said.