Ganim, Moore make closing arguments
BRIDGEPORT — Surveying Marilyn Moore’s mostly empty East End campaign office Monday night, it was hard not to wonder if there were better ways for the writein mayoral contender to connect with voters a week before Election Day.
It was the final of six community forums Moore, a state senator, had scheduled this month for residents to get to know her.
After two hours, just 11 people had showed up at the Stratford Avenue address, most already supporters and/or involved in her efforts to unseat her fellow Democrat, incumbent Joe Ganim.
Still, Moore, 71, insisted to the small crowd that she has “momentum.”
And Ganim, 60, seemingly has all the advantages. The mayor has the recognition, financial support and power to get things done — or at least promise to — that comes with incumbency, along with the socalled Democratic machine’s getoutthevote operation.
Perhaps most importantly, his name tops the ballot Tuesday while Moore’s supporters need to pencil hers in.
But Ganim has been campaigning hard and is hardly acting like another fouryear term is assured. That is, if the election is even held. Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens is expected to rule Thursday on a request by Moore
supporters to order a doover of the Sept. 10 Democratic primary because of alleged abuses involving mailin or absentee ballots.
Moore beat Ganim on the voting machines — which shocked many of his allies — but he won the primary with absentee votes.
So the mayor is not just aiming for a general election win, but a decisive one.
For example, a few weeks ago it seemed Ganim was telling residents anything they wanted to hear. Tired of Bridgeport’s high tax rate? Ganim claimed he had an unspecified plan to lower taxes over the next two years. Upset that the mayor’s proposed budgets have flatfunded the schools? He promised to give more money to education. Confronted by a proimmigrant group with accusations he has not done enough outreach to that community? He pledged to improve.
“He’s not trying to defend his record,” Moore said Monday. “He’s promising he’ll do something better in the next four years.”
Meanwhile, Ganim has been offering a glasshalffull closing message at public events and in advertisements on social media.
“We’ve accomplished a lot, but we have more work to be done in the city,” he says into the camera in one campaign video.
“Where were you?”
It is apparent some voters feel their mayor has been absentwithoutleave on issues important to them. At a North End community forum last week on qualityoflife issues, Ganim sat patiently as some accused him of shirking his duties.
Moore’s campaign is trying to tap into that sentiment in a flier that targets Ganim’s decision to spend much of 2017 and 2018 running for governor.
Ganim ran the city in the 1990s, was convicted of corruption in 2003, and successfully appealed to voters
for a second chance in 2015. Then, just over a year into his historic comeback term, the mayor turned his attention to succeeding outgoing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Ganim’s quest ended in August 2018 when Ned Lamont, of Greenwich, won the statewide primary in a landslide.
“Immediately after we gave him that (second) chance, he spent two years on our dime scurrying around the state in a failed run for governor,” reads the Moore flier. “Now he’ll do almost anything to hang on to the job he tried so hard to leave.”
Ganim spent over two hours listening to disgruntled North End residents at John Winthrop Elementary School, located in Moore’s Senate district. She did not attend. He arrived about 25 minutes late and apologized by explaining he is a busy man.
“We’re trying to be in a lot of places at once, usually,” Ganim said.
Throughout the night he emphasized that he knows the city, drives and walks its neighborhoods, is well versed on the issues and has been and will continue to work hard to address them.
“In the North End I hear three things — taxes, how can we get more money for our schools, and police presence,” the mayor said. “In those areas we are making positive gains . ... I want you to know they are top front and center.”
Most of the concerns were focused on the Sacred Heart University students who rent apartments in the North End and the resultant parties, loud music, garbage and traffic. The school is located just over the border in Fairfield.
“I feel I pay a lot of property taxes and I’m not getting anything,” Karen, who declined to give her last name, told Ganim.
“You’ve taken too long to solve this problem,” an elderly gentleman told the mayor. “You’ve been around three or four years. Where were you?”
Ganim said he personally patrolled some of the North End neighborhoods to witness the is
sues and “I’m with you 100 percent.”
But then Helga Brana, who lives near the Trumbull Gardens lowincome housing site, spoke up about the stray bullet that flew through her home of 47 years in March 2018. She claimed the mayor was invited to a public safety meeting and never showed.
“I could have been killed,” she said. “Where were you, Mr. Mayor? ... You didn’t have time for us.”
“If I missed your meeting, I apologize,” Ganim responded, offering to meet with her in the future.
Two others in the audience said that their calls to the mayor’s office about issues were never returned.
“That bothers me,” Ganim said. “I always pride myself on making sure, whatever the response is, we get back.”
At Moore’s East End offices Monday, her supporters also alleged the mayor has ignored Bridgeport.
Frederick Hodges, who works with offenders released from prison, said he is behind Moore because Ganim fell short on his own efforts to aid exfelons. The mayor’s reentry program is currently on its third director after the first two were fired.
And Daee Muhammad complained, “We have a mayor who doesn’t seem involved in education at all.”
“I hear good things, bad things.”
Like him or not, residents have had years to get to know Ganim. And if they feel ignored, at campaign time he can be tireless when it comes to engaging and commiserating with the public, as was the case at Thursday’s North End event.
Asked why she did not attend such a large forum in her district, Moore said she had two conflicts that night.
Moore only represents part of the city as a senator. And though she launched her campaign in January, pledging to be a reformer who is not beholden to the usual
Democratic power brokers, some voters are still not sure who she is and what she represents.
One of her fliers states she will increase education funding, run an ethical administration and not use the mayor’s office “as a stepping stone.”
The candidate said she is out “knocking on some doors in some neighborhoods,” but “I haven’t had a lot of success with people opening doors.”
Earnestine Moore, who said she was unrelated to the senator, walked into Monday’s East End forum and wondered aloud about the writein candidate’s chances Tuesday.
“I hear good things, bad things,” Earnestine Moore said. “What’s the push? What’s your plan?”
Moore responded that she has spent $14,000 on mailings, mainly to the Democratdominated city’s 24,000 unaffiliated voters. She also said the campaign has 122 people who will visit the polls to help explain to voters how to write in Moore’s name.
Moore has three other writein opponents, all late entries to the mayor’s race: Republican Ethan Book, Democrat Jeff Kohut and Mary Ann McLaine. McLaine, a former gas station owner, jumped in outofnowhere last week. And while Ganim’s campaign has denied it, she is a suspected ally whose initials negate any attempt to let Moore supporters print “MM” on their ballots.
Earnestine Moore also asked Moore about her wellpublicized failure to implement a backup plan to run on Tuesday as the Working Families thirdparty candidate. Moore’s campaign thought it had collected the 207 signatures necessary to petition onto the general election ballot, but learned on Primary Day that was not the case.
“They’ll say if you can’t get it together with this, how are you going to do that (be mayor)?” Earnestine Moore said.
“I don’t believe in dwelling on mistakes,” Moore responded. “I believe in learning.”