Candidate goes against the grain

Petitioning gubernatorial candidate Guy Smith likes to call his campaign “the third way.”

Like so many anti-establishment politicians, Smith tries to tread a line of being in the party but not of the party, knowledgeable of politics but not a Hartford insider.

“People are looking for fresh and new,” he said. “I will win because my messages resonate with people.”

The retired Greenwich business executive is a lifelong Democrat, but refused to participate in the state Democratic convention over the weekend. He claimed the convention was “rigged” for Ned Lamont, who was chosen as the Democratic nominee Saturday.

Now, to appear on the August primary ballot, Smith must collect 15,458 signatures from registered Democrats, 2 percent of enrolled party members, before the deadline of June 12.

In an interview Tuesday, Smith refused to say how many signatures he had collected so far — he didn’t want his competitor Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, who is also petitioning after failing to win 15 percent of the delegates’ support at the Democratic Convention, to steal his strategy, he said. Ganim said he had 11,000 signatures as of Saturday.

Smith dismissed Ganim’s run, however, listing only himself and Lamont as Democratic candidates.

“I like Joe; I don’t think there is a path to victory given Joe’s circumstances,” he said, referring to the mayor time in federal prison for a felony corruption conviction.

Interacting with voters through the petition process is helping boost Smith’s name recognition, which he said isn’t very strong.