Chris Powell: The ambiguous charms of self-funding 'political outsiders'

Meriden, Conn., a heavily Democratic city that just rejected a property-tax increase.

Connecticut doesn't know the two rich and self-funding candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, Bob Stefanowski and David Stemerman, who are called "pop-up" candidates by the candidate endorsed by the Republican state convention, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton. So Stefanowski and Stemerman are impolitely introducing each other to Republican primary voters. It's not pretty but it's useful. 

Last week Stemerman broadcast a television commercial noting that Stefanowski enrolled as a Republican only a few weeks before becoming a candidate, long had donated to Democratic candidates, and hasn't been voting Republican. (As it turned out, Stefanowski hasn't been voting Republican because he hasn't been voting at all for 16 years.) 

Indeed, while Stefanowski seems to have been a Republican for a long time, he left the party and enrolled as a Democrat for less than a year before re-enrolling as a Republican again a year ago, apparently because he first considered running for governor as a Democrat. 

So much for core beliefs. 

Stefanowski concedes most of this, explaining weakly that he was working abroad and should have sought absentee ballots. He counters that Stemerman was once a Democrat, too, and donated to Barack Obama in 2007. But Stemerman left the Democratic Party 15 years ago and says his contribution to Obama was just the price of admission to a fundraiser sponsored by a friend and there were no additional donations. 

Indeed, for corporate executives like Stefanowski and Stemerman, politics is often not a matter of core beliefs but just business that requires cozy relations with both sides of the street. 

Stefanowski got his commercials on TV before the other Republican candidates and for a while was thought to have an advantage, but he may be badly damaged by exposure of his opportunism and dilettantism. Since Stemerman's connection with the other party is fairly remote, Republicans may take less offense from him. 

The exchange between the self-funders is a reminder that the mantle of "political outsider," seemingly much desired by some candidates for governor, can also mean unknown, untested, uninformed, and full of last-minute, unpleasant surprises, as state Republicans might have learned from their awful habit of nominating self-funding political neophytes for governor and U.S. senator in recent years. 

But there's nothing wrong with changing parties out of principle rather than opportunism, since people's views and parties evolve. Winston Churchill changed parties twice, from Conservative to Liberal and back again, because of policy differences before saving civilization from barbarism. Having gotten away with it all, he reflected: "Anyone can rat but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat." 

Stefanowski botched his "re-ratting," even as the next governor may need Churchillian ingenuity to save the state from parasitism. 

At least there was a hopeful sign last week from Meriden, a heavily Democratic city that held a referendum on its City Council's proposed budget, which carried a property tax increase of 5 percent. 

The budget was defeated by 5,999 to 260, a margin of 96 to 4 percent, and turnout was fairly representative — almost 6,300 voters. 

If even a Democratic city has had enough of raising taxes, how will ordinary Democrats view a candidate of their party for governor who plans to raise taxes again to appease the government and welfare classes? 


Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn. 
 

Chris Powell: In Conn., another self-funding rich Republican ignoramus running for governor

"Avarice,' by Jesus Solana.

David Stemerman, 48, of Greenwich, a successful investment fund manager, announced the other day that he is closing his fund and planning to become a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor of Connecticut.

Those who hope for change in state government's direction may be forgiven for thinking: not again. For Connecticut's minority party has an unfortunate habit of giving major nominations to candidates whose main qualification seems to be just their having enough money to finance their own campaigns.

Now that Connecticut's program of government financing of campaigns for state office is in doubt because of the state budget mess, a candidate's ability to finance his own campaign may seem more important to Republicans, especially since their legislators, considering it an extravagance, are the ones who want to do away with the Citizens' Election Program. But from multimillionaire Brook Johnson's campaign for U.S. senator in 1992 to multimillionaire Linda McMahon's campaigns for U.S. senator in 2010 and 2012 to multimillionaire Tom Foley's campaigns for governor in 2010 and 2014, Connecticut's Republican Party has failed, even when political circumstances were highly favorable.

As it turned out, campaign money wasn't nearly enough. Candidates also need a record in Connecticut's public life and some knowledge of the state and its government, and those self-funding Republican candidates didn't have it. Worse, they didn't care to learn, and it showed embarrassingly.

In a letter to his fund's investors disclosing his political ambition, Stemerman tried to take the edge off his wealth. "I am deeply concerned that a small number of people in our state are thriving while many are struggling to make ends meet," he wrote. He also tried to make a virtue of his political inexperience: "I do not claim to have all the answers, but as an outsider with a fresh perspective, I believe that I can bring a different approach."

"All" the answers? Even one might be nice.

Of course, someone without a record in the state's public life has as much right as anyone else to run for governor and may have valuable insights. But since Stemerman has no record, only a lot of money, Republicans and others who want political change in Connecticut should be concerned about what may be discovered about him by the opposition shortly before the election. That sort of thing badly damaged the candidacies of McMahon and Foley.

The Republicans already have a few potential candidates for governor who, while possessing no special wealth, at least have records and an idea of the state's problems. Whether they have the courage to speak about these problems as the state's sad circumstances require remains to be seen, but in any case the worst disaster that could befall Connecticut next year would be another self-funding ignoramus.

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PUERTO RICANS LONG HAVE BEEN CITIZENS: Since many Connecticut residents are from Puerto Rico or have family there, the damage done to the island by the recent terrible hurricanes has been big news here. But it would be nice if journalists interviewing local Puerto Ricans stopped saying that so-and-so "came to the United States from the island," as if today's Puerto Ricans are or ever were foreigners.

They're not. They're Americans. The United States seized Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War and federal law conferred citizenship on Puerto Ricans in 1917, if only because Congress wanted to make more men eligible for the military draft in World War I.

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.