State Senator Marilyn Moore who was reelected overwhelmingly in 2016 without the support of Mayor Joe Ganim declared Tuesday night that Ganim cozying up to Donald Trump means he has “turned his ear and back on the people that elected him.”
Ganim is attending Trump’s inauguration on Friday asserting his history with the Republican presidential-elect could place the city in better position for Washington funding of city infrastructure needs. Ganim and Trump became friendly in the 1990s when Trump considered the city for development opportunities.
In 2015, Moore supported Mary-Jane Foster for mayor over Ganim and incumbent Bill Finch. Ganim defeated both of them in a Democratic primary on his way to a big general election win over petitioning candidate Foster and several other candidates. Ganim inspired large blocs of African American voters to the polls in his comeback victory.
Anti-Ganim political operatives are urging Moore to run for mayor in 2019. That’s a ways off, but one thing’s for sure, Moore and Ganim are not buds.
From Brian Lockhart, CT Post:
“I think he has turned his ear and back on the people that elected him,” fumed state Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport, to the City Council at that group’s regular meeting Tuesday night. “I am 100 percent against this.”
“When he goes I will not forget it,” Moore, who is black, added. “And I will not let our community forget it.”
She also criticized the media interviews the mayor has given about his decision to witness Trump’s ascendance, particularly comments televised Monday on Fox 61 news.
“It’s almost to the point where he’s flaunting that he’s going,” Moore said.
Full story here.
State Senator Marilyn Moore, thank you for coming forward with your position about Mayor Joe Ganim attending Trump’s inauguration on Friday. And yes, he has turned his ear and back on the people who elected him. The voters will definitely remember Ganim trying to kiss Donald Trump’s ass for a job because we all know Trump will not help Bridgeport or Connecticut. I can’t wait for Joe to attend church service at a black church and tell those church members why he attended Trump’s inauguration.
Come on folks, read between the lines. Using Joe Ganim’s decision to attend the inauguration to paint him a traitor or Donald Trump lover? If you read carefully, you may catch on to how Joe Ganim really feels. Joe Ganim started his comment with an acknowledgement there is a ‘dark side’ to Donald Trump. Who would know this better than someone who has a past working relationship and is aware of all Donald Trump has said and done during the election? Joe Ganim simply wants to handle a Trump administration by looking at the “bright side.” Any word from our Senator on Dan Malloy’s decision to attend?
fox61.com/2017/01/16/ganim-not-judging-trump-yet/
It’s time for Ganim to switch to the Republican party. The sooner the better for his future plans. Hartford will be majority Republicans next election cycle.
Things that make you go hmmm! The Republicans only need one more seat to be the majority but the Republicans have no understanding and concern for larger cities like Bridgeport plus they are so conservative for a state like Connecticut. Joe will do what’s best for Joe. Senator Moore’s victory is the only thing that is blocking the Republicans from taking over the Senate, thanks Senator Moore.
Other than fund, fund, fund; what is there to understand about large cities? I’ll add those funds come with strings attached, always.
You may be right about Senator Moore being the blocker but that was last election. I think the people are seeing Malloy as the king problem and all the Dem. Reps. (majority) not doing anything to control the problems Malloy has caused.
or, the independent voters who swung Republican last November might finally be waking up with that hangover only to look at the ugly thing in bed next to them as they sneak out the door and go back home.
Ganim ought to switch to the Tupperware Party.
Bridgeport Kid, I hear the Republicans are still looking for musicians for the inauguration. After all you’ve done for Trump, don’t tell me you’re being ignored like David Pia.
Senator Moore is saying what Ron Mackey and I have been saying for months, Mayor Joe Ganim pulled the wool over the eyes of the Black community, hoodwinked and bamboozled the Black community after they came out to put his selfish ass back into office. Like Senator Moore my hope is the Black community holds Mayor Ganim accountable for his actions, behavior and his need to kiss the ass of Donald Trump to the detriment of those Blacks who came out to elect his punk ass.
Is everything not all-white with you guys?
Ask Donald Trump or better yet,
“When I first came into office, the head of the Senate Republicans said, ‘my number one priority is making sure president Obama’s a one-term president.’ Now, after the election, either he will have succeeded in that goal or he will have failed at that goal.”–President Obama, interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” recorded on Sept. 12, 2012, and aired on Sept. 23.
“It was no surprise, because the senator from Kentucky, who just spoke, announced at the beginning, four years ago, exactly what his strategy would be. He said, his number-one goal was to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president.”
Not really, they want America to be great again.
Actually it was the recently elected state senator George Logan who prevented the Democrats from keeping their majority. He’s a bright executive from our water utility. I believe he will legislate on what is always right.
Not really, because Marilyn Moore was not supposed to win that position, she had no money plus that district is NOT black.
Ron–Marilyn won that position because she was the best candidate. She had plenty of Green through public financing and more important an organization that included Senate Democratic leadership against the party-endorsed McCarthy in the 2016 August primary. Let’s not forget Musto redistricted Senator Gomes out of his own district, the year Ed was very sick, for Musto’s own benefit that came to bite him in his ass against Marilyn in the 2014 primary.
Ron–Furthermore, George Logan, an African American, won his seat in a primarily white district. Smarter and better candidate, like Marilyn.
Contrary to popular belief, America is not in a post racial Renaissance and in fact for black Americans although it has gotten better we still face the slings and arrows of racism on a daily basis. So to answer your question, you who hide behind the cloak of inscrutability and anonymity, yes it’s always about race.
Donald–it’s always about race when you always make it about race. NO cloak and daggers served here.
Forever Plaid,
Tom Kelly
Yes Tom, this is still America where it was founded on race, it was settled on race with the killing of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans, it’s still about race when blacks were kept as slaves to line the pockets of white America with free labor. It’s about race when it took an amendment to the Constitution to guarantee blacks the rights where in the Constitution it said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident evident that all men are created equal and they are endowed with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” while denying those basic rights to blacks until the passage of the Civil Rights amendment of 1964.
I’m sorry Tom, but we had to file a lawsuit to even get a job as a firefighter here in Bridgeport while white Bridgeport was railing against equal treatment of its residents. As long as one person in America, in Connecticut or in Bridgeport is denied their rights under law I will continue the dialogue of race and to be the social conscience of everyday America.
Donald–I am well aware of your ever-continuing good acts towards social justice. How come no one is taking our Governor and Congressional delegation out to the woodshed?
Grin Ripper,
While, as of this moment, CT’s Congressional delegation and Governor Malloy are attending the inauguration, not one of them, unlike Mayor Ganim, has in the past months praised Trump as a “good man” or claimed some valuable relationship with or understanding of Trump that behooves us in Bridgeport and CT.
Pete–Touché!
Grin, I thank God Donald and others keep it real and remind those who would like for the reality he speaks of to go away, well it won’t, and I hope he keeps on going, maybe our so-called, tired self-appointed leaders in the local African American communities get it also. They know who they are and so do I, they get all up in arms when they have their personal agenda to meet, using the innocent minorities to accomplish their goals. So here’s the deal, every mayor, present and past know this, they take care of the pseudo, tired, self-proclaimed “leaders” and everything goes dark on promises made, until they get screwed and they start all over again. Senator Moore broke the code, she’s honest, sincere, cares and most importantly doesn’t need a mayor or TC to be elected. I hope she serves as a role model for the next generation of honest, willing guys and gals willing to follow her example.
Lisa, right on target, I could not have said it any better and Joe Ganim and Mario Testa know how to play these individuals, that’s why Mario stays in his position on the DTC and that’s how Joe(1) was able to stay in office without any real black candidate challenging Joe for mayor. They are comfortable as long as they get their own needs met.
In this matter, I question Mayor Ganim’s judgment as the chief representative of our diverse city and as someone who was famously deceived by Trump (see OIB 9/16/16 piece, “Donald Trump’s Favorite Hobby, Lying”).
According to this week’s news, Mayor Ganim will attend the inauguration to try to secure some “residual relationship” with Trump, from over 20 years ago. Dark days in our city’s political history.
It seems the reported substance of that bygone relationship between Trump and Ganim was money, or perhaps better stated, greed.
From a 2003 Hartford Courant article “Witness Tells of Kickbacks to Ganim”:
“He said, ‘Lennie, Donald Trump is not paying you because you are a good public relations guy. He is paying you because you have a relationship with me.'”
Grimaldi said Ganim predicted his friend could go back to Trump and double his fee. Grimaldi did. He said Trump agreed to pay him $8,000 a month.
articles.courant.com/2003-01-10/news/0301100161_1_ganim-leonard-j-grimaldi-mayor-s-office/2
And now in 2017? What would be the appeal for Trump?
If businessman Trump has shown no interest in Bridgeport since Joe Ganim was released from federal prison and several years later elected mayor, why would a soon-to-be President Trump? How about Vice President-elect Pence? In his home state of Indiana, the law prohibits felons from running for public office.
Our city’s residents voted about 5 to 1 for Clinton over Trump. Two days later, the mayor, in a CT Post article entitled “Ganim: I know the real Trump,” said that in Trump “you’ve got a good man.”
Is that the same “good man” who Twitter-attacked Congressman John Lewis for being “all talk, talk, talk–no action or results”?
As David Remnick wrote this past week in The New Yorker:
Who would have the impoverished language to dismiss the whole of John Lewis as “sad?” As it happens, the President-elect of the United States.
Donald Trump reveals his nature through the objects of his affection and the targets of his insults. He took his time before disavowing support from the likes of David Duke, a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He has only praise for Vladimir Putin. He flatters Alex Jones, the leading crackpot conspiracy theorist of the airwaves, as a man of “amazing” reputation.
Trump chose to launch his political career as a bloviating booster of the racist conspiracy theory known as “birtherism,” declaring, in effect, the Presidency of Barack Obama was illegitimate. But when Lewis went on “Meet the Press” this weekend and challenged the legitimacy of Trump’s election, citing charges of Russian involvement in the campaign, Trump immediately reached for his phone.–David Remnick, The New Yorker Jan 15, 2017 “JOHN LEWIS, DONALD TRUMP, AND THE MEANING OF LEGITIMACY.”
www .newyorker.com/news/news-desk/john-lewis-donald-trump-and-the-meaning-of-legitimacy
Yes, as Dr. King wrote:
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
But there’s nothing yet to justify an argument for Trump being a man for Bridgeport, much less a good man for our city, our state, our country, or our world.
When I see something to the contrary, and when I find something substantive for Bridgeport resulting from Mayor Ganim’s taxpayer-funded official trips to South America, the Middle East, Philadelphia, and now Washington DC for the inauguration, I will acknowledge it.
Go for it, Joe! Forget the haters and crybabies. Trump is going to be president for at least four years. Get used to it. America has spoken as they did eight years ago and again four years after that. No one screamed America was somehow racist then. Why is that? I don’t want to hear any of the “Russians did it” crap. I’m still baffled that the crybabies have come up with a dozen excuses as to why Clinton lost. How about this? She’s a crook and a liar and most of all, a failed candidate who barely campaigned and got spanked. Oh, her private server, and stumbling when not being held up like “Weekend at Bernie’s” didn’t help her either. BTW, if the Russians hacked our election, why did Clinton win the popular vote? Apparently, they suck at hacking. A perfect example is, had Ben Carson won this election, somehow the left would be crying foul and refer to him as “selling out.” It’s left vs. right and that’s what it’s always going to be. Race had ZERO to do with this election. Get over it. And before you say it, I’m a minority.
You’re a Phantom who is white as snow. Why are you hiding who you are, what are you scared of?
And you sir are a finger-pointer who can’t see the truth for what it is. I am a born and raised Bridgeport boricua who busted his hump for everything I have and thankful to the man upstairs for it. I hate everything about people who have done nothing with themselves and blame society for their lack of a work ethic or morals. What has our outgoing loser president done in eight years except pour gas on the fire? Race relations are worse today and more minorities are dependent on government than before he took over. As I hope you’re aware, that’s what liberals love the most. Folks beholden to them for the sake of votes. Wake up and stop blaming everyone else for our faults. Not everything is someone else’s fault. Get off our proverbial culos and get to work. Make better lives for ourselves. You did it, and yet you still finger-point.
“… I’m a minority.”
There you have it, Ron Mackey! The Phantom is letting you know he is from Bridgeport, white, male Republican.
That’s pretty funny, Joel. You got one thing right, I’m a true right-leaning conservative. Sadly, on this blog I’m a double minority. LOL.
The second coming of Ganim is still hoodwinking the Black community of churches. Senator Moore is telling everyone to wake up and smell the coffee!
Ganim has yet to put his thumbprint on any project so far, he missed the boat on Holding The Line on Taxes and the creation of new jobs. Selling our assets and doing a second $400k study on the Congress St. Bridge, who’s going to pay for that, Joe? The DOT? He should be thanking Bill Finch for his playbook on projects, it obvious Ganim is at a loss, so he turns to Trump, a groping bigot, to save Bridgeport or himself?
That’s his answer for Bridgeport Taxpayers and Black community, Donald Trump?!
Maybe the Black community should go back into hiding for another three years!
Mario Testa should resign from the DTC!
Thank you, Senator Moore.
YES, what Jimfox said.
Donald Trump is our president for four years and will have access to big purse strings that can make a big difference for Bridgeport. Our problem in Bridgeport is definable in terms of poverty, municipal and family-level. President Trump, however unpalatable that defining moniker is to us, can help us a lot in this regard if he chooses.
For Mayor Ganim and Dan Malloy to indicate a willingness to work with President Trump is the essential pragmatism needed from them by Bridgeport and Connecticut, respectively. (Everyone here knows, politically, I am not a Dan Malloy fan. And I also expressed my ardent support for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein on this blog.)
Bridgeport will gain nothing by flipping the bird at Trump. It will have little symbolic value coming from a place where the 100,000-strong electorate only shows at 40-45% levels in banner years. This year it was less than 40%, I believe. And we keep supporting higher-level state and federal candidates who give us a lot of bs, and contraindicated development incentives, and nothing else. No jobs. No real $.
Trump may not be the high-minded, fair-minded person we wanted in the White House, but he’s got the keys for the time being and we need to be pragmatic about things. Bridgeport passing by economic opportunity at this point in time can only make life worse for us and create an even bleaker, Bridgeport education-income gap story and more sad, Bridgeport poverty and personal tragedy stories.
Trump and his gang will be reined in by the Constitution and the democratic process. Bridgeport and Bridgeport politicians would do well to focus on our local situation and what might be done to improve it. Our politicians making Trump the issue presents itself as hiding from the Bridgeport reality our politicians need to deal with on a pragmatic level, and have only a collective negative report card in this regard to this point.
Enough political bs! Our politicians and activists need to do/accomplish real things to build up this city and its families. In the end, political showboating will not get you re-elected or elected to higher office. Only real, positive accomplishments for Bridgeport will do that.
Get to work, politicians! The citizens are sick of your showboating and bs. DO SOMETHING!!! (for a change.)
Jeff Kohut,
Re: “Enough political bs! DO SOMETHING!!!”
If in your latest marching orders you’re speaking to your candidate for mayor, Mayor Ganim, I’d agree.
And thanks too for supporting Jill Stein, that definitely was keeping with your call to “accomplish real things.”
The transfer of power to the next president is a hallmark of our constitution. Marilyn Moore has decided Joe Ganim should not attend the inauguration because black people supported him and she does not like Donald Trump. Is she going to Washington DC with the pantsuit nation women who have their panties in a knot? She needs to think big-picture so she can be taken seriously.
It’s a celebration and almost half of America sees nothing to celebrate so if Joe Ganim wants to celebrate Donald Trump’s celebration while representing the voters of Bridgeport who care NOTHING about Donald Trump then Joe goes at the risk of a backlash from the voters.
Senator Moore persevered fearlessly to attain the office she holds. Testa and McCarthy used every political trick in the book to defeat her. They were successful in blocking her nomination with the help of my district Town Committee, and she still cleaned their clock. As to Ganim, he’s well aware of the devious antics Trump used against Bridgeport, but they’re like-minded, inferior humans and they deserve each other. For those of you who think there’s anything patriotic or noble about Ganim attended this illegitimate inauguration, dream on, you’re all in LaLa Land and I’m not referring to the movie.
Backlash from “voters.” Now that’s funny! I’d love to see the demographics on these “voters” who magically put Ganim into office all alone.
youtu.be/K8E_zMLCRNg