“Did a slate of candidates forget what they were running for?” Democratic Candidate Asks

By Jacob Pudlin,

In the press release from the Row B slate for the Democratic Town Committee primary election, establishment New Britain Democrats said two bizarre things. First, they have the support of the “current DTC membership,” forgetting that incumbents are on both slates in both wards. But even more bizarre is the second, when they say they have “brought millions of dollars for schools, public safety, and development.”

Did they accomplish this as DTC members? I didn’t know DTC members had that kind of power!

This isn’t a slip-up, because it states their real intention. Our state delegation is not running to be on the DTC. They don’t care about a functioning DTC, they don’t care about whether the number of registered Democrats in New Britain decreases, and they don’t even care when municipal or special elections are lost. They care about controlling their offices, and are terrified of being challenged for them. So to clarify for anyone who is worried for them:

Our state delegation has no primary opponents. Not one.

They’ve launched their campaigns and begun fundraising, and have zero Democrats running against them or even forming exploratory committees. We are having a primary because our leaders are afraid of their own shadows, so they want to have total control of the organization that endorses candidates. They fear that if they were challenged, they would lose their personal power – power they’ve failed to use to help the New Britain Democratic Party in meaningful ways.

Bobby Sanchez’s historic defeat in a Mayoral election – doing worse than first time candidates, doing worse than people who have few or no roots in New Britain, doing worse than people roughly half his age with half his resume – was the moment that our delegation likely realized: without the endorsement of the fewer than 50 people on the DTC, they don’t have much keeping them in office. So how do they guarantee that support?

Answer: by pushing away anyone disloyal to their personal careers in any way, including in their imagination.

In our press release, Alderman Nate Simpson mentioned we only had two DTC meetings last year because all the other meetings failed to have a quorum in attendance. I will say what he isn’t going to say. Alderman Simpson, Hillary Desideraggio, and Richard Laccourciere sat in my living room making calls to DTC members the Monday before those meetings to increase turnout, and they did this both times that a quorum was actually achieved. This isn’t their job, but when they saw no one else doing anything to fix the problem, they got to work. Without them, we functionally wouldn’t have had a DTC in existence last year.

The establishment-backed slate includes none of those three current DTC members, but it does include many DTC members with the lowest rate of attendance. Chris Anderson emailed that the February DTC meeting was canceled, after failing to meet more than half the times it was supposed to under his leadership. They’ve gone from failing to meet, to simply not trying at all. This cannot be anyone’s idea of a successful party.

It can’t be said more clearly: there are people running for an organization they are not interested in the success of – instead they are running because of their inability to win elections without it. The party can wither and die for all they care, as long as it exists just enough to endorse them. They know that we’ve hit rock bottom in the time they’ve been in power, and they don’t have a plan to fix it.

The establishment backed slate doesn’t include either of the two Municipal Slate Campaign Managers whose work helped win Democratic majorities on the City Council the only two times it happened in the last decade. It doesn’t include two of our new Alderpeople in a Common Council where we have a one-seat majority. Instead, it includes several family members of legislators, who may have forgotten the difference between democracy and monarchy.

Admitting these things gets you reprimanded in our party. You get accused of giving Erin Stewart the ammunition to beat us in elections. But why would she need it? Every time New Britain Democrats lose to Erin Stewart or any Republican, look at the numbers again. The decreased voter registrations, the low turnout to DTC meetings, the abysmal voter outreach during our state legislators reelection campaigns, all of them overall on a downward trajectory for 20 years. Then remember, that Row B is vocally running on a campaign of “This is fine, we’re doing a good job, let’s not rock the boat,” all while alienating most of the most active members of the party. So at risk of continued reprimanding, I’m saying something while there is still a chance to change this. Let’s stop our own party leadership from imploding the party to soothe their wounded egos.

I’m voting Row C on March 5th because we want to work on the DTC, unlike the people who want it to work for them.