Women for Oz spurn ‘spoiler’ label

They gathered in a thought-provoking, civilized setting, perhaps too much so: Oz Griebel, Monte Frank and a crowd of women supporting their campaign for the state’s top two spots.

They came to Hartford from all over: Maryfrances Metrick in from Ridgefield, Kirsten Fulda from New Haven, Cathy Stewart, a New Yorker who’s vice president of the national advocacy group, Independent Voting.

I arrived with trepidation toward the end of the women for Oz event at the EBK Gallery, in view of the state Capitol — where Griebel and Frank, their sincerest efforts notwithstanding, will not be sworn in as governor and lieutenant governor on Jan. 9.

That bald fact was the source of dramatic tension in the storefront gallery on Wednesday, amid drawings and paintings inspired by one word at the call of owner and curator Eric Ben-Kiki: Vote.

Oh, they’re voting all right, and talking it up. Is their man Griebel a spoiler, specifically for Democrat Ned Lamont? To a woman they don’t think so, but it’s looking like he could play exactly that role, as Lamont struggles for momentum, especially with moderate women, against Republican Bob Stefanowski.

They hold two beliefs that are in some ways admirable, but which could end up swinging a close election to Stefanowski — if the crucial segment of suburban and professional women follows suit. First, that Griebel can win. And second, that breaking apart the two major parties’ hold on American politics is bigger than this election.

“I think he’s going to become governor,” said Metrick, from Ridgefield, a financial industry consultant. “And if he becomes governor, the whole system changes.”

Miracles can happen, right? Well, no, not this one. Griebel has gained a few percentage points in the polls and joined in three of the six debates, two of them with both Lamont and Stefanowski. Likable and logical as he is, occupying the political center, he’s three months and $3 million short of mounting a potentially winning upset on Tuesday.

As for the larger picture, Metrick and others in this group are no less ardent. She lives in a house built in 1783 and thinks of all that happened there.

“Generations of people sat in my dining room and sent loved ones off to war and they sacrificed,” Metrick said. “Our values have been a beacon to the world. Our country matters, and for what? For the principles that have held us together…and those ideas have been imperiled by the duopoly of the two-party system. And in order to change, we need people like Oz and Monte.”

Strong stuff, echoed by others, including Fulda, of New Haven, who works with nonprofit agencies and sees solutions to intractable poverty not bubbling up. “That has been going on whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power,” she said, declaring she would vote for neither of the two majorparty candidates even if Griebel were not on the ballot.

Now the kicker: “It doesn’t make any difference whether you vote for Lamont or Stefanowski,” Metrick said. “Nothing is going to change.”

Whoa, there. Whoa. The 13-point, women for Oz manifesto presented by Marian Hanson and signed by a few dozen women extols support for the arts, support for alternative energy, equal pay for equal work, paid family and medical leave, mandated background checks for all firearms purchases, the ban on military-style weapons, and, yes, spending cuts leading to tax cuts.

Helloooooo, the candidates matter here — way more than Bush v. Gore and Malloy v. Foley.

Griebel, for his part, sounds like a confident winner, as any candidate should. “Don’t underestimate the passion,” he said. ”People are really tired of the garbage we’re hearing from the other two people.”

Griebel said he’s getting regular calls from operatives in both the major-party campaigns, asking him to drop out. ”What would it take? You want to be a commissioner?” he quotes them asking.

Griebel declined to identify the callers but said they are not Lamont and Stefanowski directly.

He should not drop out, the unprincipled path that petitioning Republican Joe Visconti took in 2014 on the weekend before the election. And his supporters should vote their passions, their ideals.

But no one should think the outcome doesn’t matter and that their votes can’t swing the election. It matters. And it can. Just ask former state Comptroller Bill Curry, the Democratic nominee in 1994 and 2002, who’s still writing that a third-party candidate took votes from him, and changed Connecticut history.