The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A window to Washington
Corey tries to scale political heights by taking on Murphy
Matthew Corey dangled off the side of a Hartford office building by a gray sailor’s rope.
Eight stories in the air, Corey calmly perched his brown work boots on the sill of a window almost as tall as he was. A harness circled his waist and looped over his shoulders. As he moved a squeege over the glass, water droplets speckled a red awning 70 feet below.
“We don’t talk about things dropping or falling,” 54-year-old Corey joked.
Corey’s strong arms reflect the 29 years he’s spent as a window washer. Standing on the graveled roof of the Day Pitney building, he pointed to the skyscrapers whose glass he’s cleaned — nearly every tower piercing the city skyline.
Peering through the windows of some of the state’s largest office buildings has given Corey a unique perspective on corporate America that he hopes to carry to Washington. Corey won the Republican endorsement to challenge U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. Taking on the Democrats’ rising star won’t be easy with almost no campaign cash, but Corey says now is the time for “a blue-collar fella” with Trumpian ideas to represent Connecticut.
“See that building over there?”
Corey pointed to a sleek glass tower. “50 or 60 percent empty. Even this building has 20 percent empty desks.”
He saw the struggles of workers, too, in his downtown Hartford bar, McKinnon’s Irish Pub.
“They had layoff parties in my establishment,” he said.
That’s when he decided to run for Congress the first time.
Late to the race, Corey ran as an unaffiliated candidate challenging U.S. Rep. John Larson, a Democrat, for Connecticut’s 1st District in 2012.
Corey was the Republican-endorsed candidate for the same seat in 2014 and 2016. He was trounced every year, collecting at most 37 percent of the vote in 2014.
Still, his Senate ambition is undaunted. In stump speeches and interviews, Corey highlights the contrasts between himself and Murphy, a lawyer who has held elected office since age 25.
“When you look at a guy like me you say ‘My god, he’s got the same values as me. He actually works for a living,’ ” he said. “To have somebody down there to represent the state of Connecticut — which is coming back in manufacturing — that has never worked in the private sector his entire life, the only thing he has ever done is run for political office. How could he possibly know the struggles that the American people are facing?”
Primary ahead
Before Corey can face off against Murphy, however, he will have to survive a challenge from Republican Dominic Rapini in the August primary.
Rapini, a national accounts manager for Apple, had raised $116,975 in individual contributions as of April, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In the same period, Corey raised $15,229. He received 14 contributions, three of them from his brothers, who gave a total of $3,000, according to FEC data. Corey loaned $3,000 to his own campaign.
Incumbent Murphy has raised $12 million for his 2018 re-election campaign.
“I know you need a lot of money to do it,” Corey said. “I’m just asking for help.”
He supports President Donald Trump’s policies, including the $1.5 trillion tax cut, the repeal of the individual health care mandate and rollback of business and environmental regulations. He’s for welfare reform and wants to eliminate the federal Department of Education.
From there his policies trend further right, calling for the erasure of “Radical Islam,” and support for arming teachers. In 2014, he said President Barack Obama should be impeached.
Mocking his rival Murphy’s gun control advocacy, Corey has called him a “Communist gun-grabber.”
Pride in a working-class background is the heart of his political pitch. He’s used it since he first started running for office.
“His best (political) attribute is being an everyday average person,” said John Henry Decker, the Republican who ran against Corey and Larson in 2012, and calls Corey a friend. “Someone who works hard, pays taxes, knows what it’s like to run a business.”
Union blood?
The son of a postal worker and Royal Typewriter employee, Corey grew up with six siblings in Manchester, where he attended public schools before joining the Navy at age 18. After four years of service, he joined the Postal Service and did a stint as a truck driver. He then moved to Boston and became a window washer.
One day last week, Corey traded his blue jeans and work boots for a shirt and tie and went to a rally of unionized Connecticut transit workers to listen to their struggles with long hours, no breaks and no bathroom access.
“I like the fact that he is reaching out to what is traditionally a Democratic group,” said Dave D’Alessandro, 54, of Coventry, a mechanic and unaffiliated voter.
D’Alessandro liked Corey’s “union blood.” Corey was a member of the Teamsters when he was a driver and still belongs to the actors union SAG-AFTRA. (After stumbling into an audition in Gloucester, Mass., Corey acted in a community play one summer, took acting classes in New York, landed a non-speaking commercial part and served as an extra in the 2000 film “Dinner Rush.”)
“That’s the kind of Republican I would lean toward voting for,” D’Alessandro said. “Very electable, very electable.”
Corey didn’t bring it up with the transit workers, but he later said he supported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week against mandatory union fees. The ruling was widely interpreted as a blow to organized labor.
Scrambling for support
When talk turns from his colorful bio to his political platform, Corey muddles the details.
He’s schooled himself on political issues by listening to local talk radio and chatting with people at his many jobs, he said.
Typical for Corey, when he explained his platform to a small group of Republicans Wednesday evening, he spoke off the cuff.
Calling for more border security, he evoked the case of Casey Chadwick, 25, of Norwich who was murdered in 2015 by a Haitian man who illegally immigrated to the U.S.
“She was separated from her family by an illegal immigrant who stabbed her through the heart — 21 years old,” he said. “This is what we are dealing with — we are dealing with hatred and obstructionism down in Washington.”
Corey is scrambling for support wherever he can find it, at times even attending meetings of tiny Republican groups espousing extreme social conservatism. Last week, Corey brought his message to the first dinner of the 25-member Connecticut Republican Assembly in the back room of a Plainville tavern.
About half way through the event, an evangelical speaker described how society “implodes” when men choose to have “concubines” and girlfriends over traditional marriage structures. Corey — who has never married and lives with his girlfriend and dog in Manchester — headed for the door.
“I’m a Catholic,” he said, explaining that he didn’t come to be preached at. He’s more of a libertarian on social issues like gay marriage and transgender bathrooms, he said.
“Live and let live,” he shrugged. He grabbed his palm cards, featuring a goofy photo of him giving a thumbs up in front of the U.S. Capitol, and went home.