A word or two with Mayor Martin
Stamford Mayor David Martin just wasn’t made for Twitter.
I’m not even sure he could comment on an issue in 280 characters or less. He likes to burrow into the details. He chats in Encyclopedia Britannica entries, not haikus.
Let me say this more economically: David Martin likes to talk.
Martin knows this about himself. As do the people he talks to. I’m meeting with him as part of the Hearst Connecticut Media Editorial Board a few days before the Democratic City Committee voted to endorse state Rep. Caroline Simmons instead of Martin, a two-term incumbent.
After deconstructing his experiences with state and federal lawmakers, he stares at me for a moment. His pause acknowledges that we both know this was a particularly long discourse (24 minutes and three seconds).
“I’m sorry,” he says with a wry smile. “You shouldn’t have asked the question.”
I still can’t remember what I asked.
He routinely jests about his loquaciousness. He turns to my colleague, Opinion Editor Carolyn Lumsden, and asks “Have you noticed I talk about certain things?” Then gestures to me and adds, “He’s used to it. You may not be.”
When staff members try to beckon him back to the office after more than a couple of hours, he accepts responsibility that “it’s my fault, it’s not their fault.”
At the end of our conversation, my notebook is filled with nearly as many percentage signs as words, because Martin speaks Percentage. He’s been like this as long as he’s been in public office, which dates back to his election to the Board of Representatives in 1983. In 1990, an Advocate reporter covering a Board of Reps meeting focused his story on a 40-minute argument Martin had with (future mayor) Stanley Esposito about recycling after the meeting.
He remained on the board for 26 years, finally leaving elected office after losing his first bid to become mayor in 2009 to Michael Pavia. Two years later, he was elected to the Board of Finance before becoming mayor in 2013. So he’s lost one election in 38 years. The DCC setback doesn’t mean he can’t rally back, but he needs to beat Simmons in an expected primary Sept. 14, then win on Election Day over former Major League Baseball Manager and ex-Stamford Public Safety Director Bobby Valentine (who is running unaffiliated) and Republican Joe Corsello, who is a musician, former cop and military veteran.
Voters are fortunate to have four quality candidates who love their home turf this much, and each offers an intriguing narrative. If elected, Simmons, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy analyst, would become the city’s first female mayor; Valentine would be only the second not to come from one of the two major parties (the first was Dr. Charles Rowell from 1911 to 1913); and Corsello would be only the second Republican mayor in Stamford in more than a quarter of a century.
Here’s some Stamford political trivia that even Martin has probably forgotten: He has faced a former New York Met in a race before. Back in 1995, one of the candidates for his North Stamford district on the Board of Reps was Phil Linz, perhaps the only Major Leaguer better known as a bad harmonica player.
By that time, Martin’s name was already being floated as a potential mayoral candidate. But other Dems were in line ahead of him, including Sandy Goldstein, who lost to Esposito in 1991, and Dannel Malloy, who kept a stranglehold on the office from 1995 to 2009.
I ask Martin to contextualize the challenges he faces to hold onto a seat he seemed to desire three decades ago.
“I wouldn’t say I had my eye on it 30 years ago,” he replies, “but I don’t think I can deny you either.” How’s that for a political answer?
Given that he is the guy in the office the others are trying to claim, Martin doesn’t hold back from tossing barbs at his rivals, though he reflexively says something kind about each of them as well.
His predecessors fall into the same camp. He credits Malloy with making overdue moves to address city debts, but describes those initiatives as “slow and anemic.” The city he inherited from Pavia was in “chaos,” he laments.
He’s more measured in assessing Simmons. “Caroline is a good person. I don’t know how to describe this, but I don’t think she has the managerial experience to basically run this city. I don’t think she really knows how this works. I like to have her as a legislator, but I don’t think she’s prepared for this position at this time.”
A Boston Red Sox fan, he mocks Valentine’s managerial record in the major leagues, where he never claimed a World Series ring during stints managing the Texas Rangers, New York Mets (which he led to a National League pennant) and Red Sox. I find myself defending Valentine, pointing out that he did lead the Chiba Lotte Marines to the Japan Series crown.
“Then he should run in Japan,” Martin responds mischievously.
Hizzoner doesn’t spare himself.
“I’ll get a little nerdy on you,” he says before a reference to columnist Colin McEnroe’s recent description of him: “What some people call ‘boring.’ ”
OK, I’ll bite. He is nerdy. And can be boring. He later concludes, “Maybe I’m just a big, old, ornery crank.”
The words filling this space are a Tweet compared with the characters Martin burns through in celebrating his record. Of course, he has a lot to say because he has exhaustive familiarity with how the pieces of the city fit together. But he does summarize his primary point succinctly, and defiantly.
“We are doing a better job than any other community in the state and I defy anyone to say otherwise.”
Simmons, Valentine and Corsello will likely have something to say about that. Ultimately, of course, elections aren’t about the most words, or the best words, but about the last words. And those belong to the voters.