The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
GOP governor hopefuls in focus after riot
The 2022 race for governor in Connecticut will hinge on economic growth in the most sluggish state of the 21st century, not COVID-19, and certainly not the legacy of the disgraced Donald Trump.
But to win that battle, most likely against Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, the three likely
Republican entrants — none close to declaring yet — will have to reckon with the ghost of Trump.
Wednesday’s mob scene at the U.S. Capitol made that scary graveyard walk easier for New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart; more complicated for former House GOP Leader Themis Klarides; and harder for 2018 party nominee Bob Stefanowski. That’s the surface view, at least.
The three appear to stack up nicely: Stewart least aligned with Trump and Trumpism; Klarides, a 2016 Trump delegate, in the middle and edging, perhaps sprinting, further from Trump; and businessman Stefanowski delivering less criticism of the exiting president and his views — though still some.
Their statements about the breach of the seat of American democracy — on Twitter and in more detail to me directly — show that alignment. It’s nice of them to give GOP voters some choices, understanding all too well that winning over Republicans in a primary and independents in a general election are two very different feats.
Still, it’s not a clean picture. This being deep-blue Connecticut, where any Republican not named Berthel must hedge or be hedged, all three would-be GOP combatants for governor bring shades of gray to the Trump question. All three tread very, very carefully through this graveyard.
“As I said that day, I was saddened and ashamed at what happened,” Stewart said in a 300word statement her spokeswoman emailed to me Friday. “The acts of those people — and those who incited them — were not representative of the Republican Party that I know. The party of Reagan, Bush and Lincoln.”
Stewart extolled GOP virtues and added, “The road for Republicans
in Connecticut has become much steeper since Wednesday but it has never been more crucial for those of us in office to demonstrate the values of the Republican Party that I know to our fellow citizens. Make no mistake, I have been critical of this President since the day he took office and what is most important right now is that our actions speak louder than our words.”
So, was that Stewart laying blame for the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on Trump? Not directly but it seems clear. Her spokeswoman confirmed that, yes, the fourth-term mayor at least partly blames Trump for the siege.
Klarides is far more direct in blaming Trump.
“This is not America. There is no place for inciting violence and storming our nation’s Capitol. There is no place for this behavior. The President owns this and he needs to stop now,” she tweeted at 6:32 p.m. Wednesday.
And Klarides, who didn’t run for reelection in November to the state House representing Derby and surrounding towns, didn’t leave any doubt when I talked with her Thursday.
“At this point by him not accepting the results he is continuing to incite people,” Klarides said of Trump.
Stewart and Klarides have both said as bluntly as possible that the election is over and Trump should concede. “Nobody likes to lose,” Klarides said, citing the 60-plus lawsuits over election results in various states that all failed, “but it’s time to move on. ... At a certain point, enough is enough.”
That reflected her comments in a story that appeared Wednesday, before the mob scene, by The CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas. And Stewart said pretty much the same words.
Stefanowski, by contrast, declined to say in the story and in a statement to me that Trump should concede, and that the results of the election are legitimate.
Stefanowski, a Madison resident, also declined to blame Trump for the siege on the Capitol.
“The events in Washington on Wednesday will take some time to unpack. The lack of preparedness of Capitol Police to hold back the rioters, the subset of people from an otherwise peaceful protest who became violent, and the lack of action by the president or other leaders in government that could have prevented the travesty, all need to be reviewed.”
Likewise, in his tweet Wednesday, he decried the violence and
added, “Our thoughts and prayers go out to all in harm’s way.”
The old thoughts-and-prayers line — by now a motto for conservatives unwilling to lay blame, almost like these things are acts of God.
So we can see that Stefanowski’s strategy still calls for him to appeal to that segment of voters aligned with Trump against established institutions, as was the case when he ran against Lamont — and far outperformed expectations with 644,000 votes, more than any former governor ever collected except M. Jodi Rell in 2006.
Still, Stefanowski has criticized Trump’s character at times to me and other folks in the media.
The GOP will work hard to make the 2022 election about anything but Trump, of course.
“If Donald Trump is the litmus test by which Republicans make their selection for the 2022 gubernatorial election we will lose and we will lose spectacularly,” said Republican consultant Liz Kurantowicz, who’s not currently working with any candidates for the office. “This is what Democrats are praying for, that Connecticut Republicans will once again retreat to our familiar, proverbial circular firing squad and make Donald Trump the focus.”
It’s a balancing act. Certainly for some voters, Trump will matter — positively or negatively — as we see in strong comments to all three politicians’ tweets on Wednesday.
Stewart may have been weaker than Klarides in her criticism of Trump this week but she has generally — though certainly not entirely — distanced herself from the president over the last four years. She did travel to the White House in February, 2018, and said to at the time, “I’ve been pretty outspoken about not supporting Trump and about not supporting or being in favor of a lot of what he’s done and his approach.”
Of course, she’s a Republican mayor of an overwhelmingly Democratic city. In July, 2020, she told The Hartford Courant’s Chris Keating, “We have to elevate our voices even louder to say ‘Here’s why you should vote for Republican ideology — less government, pro-business, not necessarily the things spewing from President Trump,” she said in that story.
Klarides was a delegate for Trump in 2016 and even spoke at a Trump rally in Bridgeport — which she may come to regret — but she was not one this year and he comments have grown more critical of the president. To be fair, she was never a full-on supporter.
“The first time he ran I had concerns about him but I thought he would grow into that job and....understand what it takes to be president of the United States but I didn’t find that it happened,” Klarides told me Thursday.
As for changing her stance in order to position for a run for governor, well, I had to ask.
“It’s just not true. I have served in this state for 22 years. I have supported Republicans, I have not supported Republicans, Klarides said. “I have lived and worked with my conscience whether it was popular or not.”