A new shade of GOP red

Republicans who dismissed Higbie & Co. had a mask over their eyes.

Welcome to “Family Feud.” This week, we have a showdown between members of the same family — the Greenwich Republican Town Committee.

To the right are a brand of Grand Old Party members who have held sway over Greenwich politics since George H.W. Bush tromped around Greenwich Country Day School during the Great Depression.

To the further right are strategists including state Rep. Kimberly Fiorello and Trump adviser Carl Higbie who pulled off a (there’s no better word for it) coup of the RTC by ousting veteran members at recent caucuses and replacing them with more conservative activists.

The old guard continued the Buckley, Reagan, Bush arc. This new brand is forging a different course altogether, as they plant a flag of resistance against mask mandates, vaccines and a belief that curriculum in schools is too progressive.

To the left are Democrats gleefully (“Bwah, hah, hah”) believing they can already claim the spoils.

Let’s be honest: Most game show guests couldn’t guess what RTC or DTC stand for (“Road to Crisis?” “Diagnostic Trouble Codes?”), let alone understand the power that party committees wield in determining who will hold seats of power.

It’s the town committees that essentially determine who the candidates will be on the ballot each November for critical boards guiding local spending and education policies. Thus, some municipal outcomes are decided long before Election Day.

The playbook

Shifting the political paradigm starts with seizing control of town committees. For Greenwich, it comes down to just 63 RTC members. In recent caucuses, 41 members were elected (including 27 freshmen) who stand firmly in the deeper scarlet hues. Turnouts in districts that would typically be in the teens topped 100. While COVID scared off some historically reliable voters, that didn’t matter to those fired up by town mandates.

In the case of Greenwich, casual observers would see recent election results as cause of celebration for Republicans. Fred Camillo was reelected as first selectman with 70 percent of the vote. Ryan Fazio reclaimed the 36th state senate district after Democrats captured it for the first time in nine decades in 2018.

But percolating feuds finally boiled over.

Camillo was called out for his mask mandates by Higbie in a letter to the editor. “As a Republican, (which Fred claims to be), I will stand up against anyone’s attempt to mask me or my kids,” wrote Higbie, a Greenwich native and former U.S. Navy SEAL who served two tours in President Donald Trump’s administration and hosts a Newsmax show.

Fazio, who appeared to be the face of the future of Greenwich Republicans, had to overcome a challenge for his nomination last summer by Republican National Committeewoman for Connecticut Leora Levy. Levy had been nominated to become ambassador to Chile after flipping from Trump critic to Trump champion.

RTC Chair Dan Quigley wrote a November op-ed in which he declared, “Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid. It is time for him to move on, and it is time for Republicans to move on from him.” Pundits use different clichés (“nail in the coffin,” “last straw,” “cherry on top,”), but it translates to the same ire from Greenwich Republicans who felt they weren’t being heard.

You don’t have to be a Greenwich political wonk to recognize the significance of what happened next, or that there was one common cast member in those scenarios. For those who see former Greenwichite Trump as Lord Voldemort, this is the scene where his acolytes raise his spirit from a graveyard.

“Trumpism is alive and active,” one reliably moderate Republican voice declared.

New Yorker Staff Writer Evan Osnos wrote about the evolving political identity of Greenwich (where he grew up) in his latest book “Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury.” When I told him this latest plot twist made him look like an oracle, he embraced the compliment (it “will give me a spring in my step for the rest of the year”) but preferred to let his work be his spokesperson.

I talked to members of the different factions, winners and losers alike, to understand how party stalwarts such as former town finance board chair Michael Mason and former state Rep. Steve Walko were bounced. The narrative was consistent, regardless of the narrator. And everyone acknowledged that the turnaround was executed with military precision.

That’s unusual even for the most disciplined of campaigns. In this case, it involved members of varied factions who shared something in common: They felt they were being ignored — and insulted — by party leadership and town leaders. That united them.

The most visible among these groups is the Greenwich Patriots. Group founder Jackie Homan described the overthrow as “stealth.” It’s the perfect word to describe the Federated Republican Women, a new group that reportedly claimed 21 of the 63 spots. Under different circumstances, the headline on the outcome of the caucuses would be about the dramatic gender flip.

I asked Higbie who gathered the troops.

“It was not ‘my group’ but a perfectly balanced army of concerned citizens,” he replied. “I have only been one of many parts. Behind the scenes, the Greenwich Patriots, the federated women’s group, (former Board of Education member) Peter Sherr, (former Representative Town Meeting member) Joe Solari, (outgoing RTC member) Laura Gladstone, former and current RTC members and a slew of others in the community took action. Kimberly Fiorello has been a great resource by ensuring everything we do is guided by conservative principles reflecting the views of the people she was elected by.”

‘41 United Republicans’

Fiorello, a state representative whose district includes parts of Stamford and Greenwich, is unwavering in her conservative principles. Her name appeared at the end of an invitation to a pizza/beer/ wine party addressed to “41 United Republicans.” Every member was offered a minute to speak, Levy was slotted for three, and 25 minutes were planned for an “Overview of next steps for this coalition of 41.”

Other RTC members, past and future, who were not part of this movement were not invited.

Another email circulated by Fiorello and Linda McMahon associate Sunghi Pak Frauen shorthanded a vision: “This new and improved Greenwich RTC now has the opportunity to vet and recruit principled, conservative Republican candidates who stand for principles that include but are not limited to: Individual Freedom; Limited Government; Fiscal Responsibility; Parental Rights; America First.”

She ended it with a “Let’s go Brandon” logo, code for a vulgar insult of President Joe Biden. Classy.

What’s next?

Some reeling party members shudder at the next chapter. Will Levy challenge Fazio again, opening the door for Democrats to reclaim the senate district? Will Camillo face enough pressure to avoid seeking a third term? Will state Rep. Harry Arora be pushed aside like his wife, Nisha, who lost her seat on the RTC?

None of that is likely to happen. Insiders see Levy as a better fit for a national race (such as U.S. Rep. Jim Himes’ Fourth District). Camillo is so popular he could do the unthinkable and win as a Democrat.

The “41 United” will likely come down from the ’za and wine high and face political realities. Higbie tweeted a poll Wednesday asking, “Who is better poised to defeat liberal @GovNedLamont for CT governor? Bob Stefanowski or Kim Fiorello?”

Stefanowski, who announced Wednesday he would seek a rematch with Lamont, won this showdown with 56.8 percent of the vote.

Yes, there were only 44 votes, but the Greenwich RTC caucus proves elections can be tilted by drawing out just a dozen or so new voters.

“My town Republican Party leaders ignored us ... so we took the party back from them. It starts local folks,” Higbie told his Newsmax audience.

Republicans who dismissed Higbie & Co. had a mask over their eyes. He’s not wrong when he says if it can happen in Greenwich, it can happen anywhere.

The unknown is what values will be expressed by the newest members of this RTC, names that are unfamiliar to party die-hards. Because there are more than two Republican brands. It’s not just sides of a coin, but a Rubik’s Cube.

Like any family feud, there is more to lose than there is to gain.

The game starts now.