Callahan: Organized Opposition Doesn’t Come Easy

BY JIM CALLAHAN

You look at an election campaign hoping to find illumination on the issues of the day, and some idea from the candidates on the way forward. In Bridgeport’s mayoral primary today–not so much.

Kate Breslin, Mayor Bill Finch’s campaign manager, said it best to the Connecticut Post the other day: It’s the mayor’s election to lose against challenger Mary-Jane Foster. The primary for the Democratic nomination between Finch and Foster comes down to whether the Democratic organization controlled by the mayor and allies can be defeated by the challenge organization put together by Foster.

A couple wrinkles: the mayor’s team has taken credit for a large number of absentee ballots circulating around. Foster’s team has taken credit for registering many new voters. New voters usually vote. Whether the ABs and newbies balance each other out will be interesting. It would be nice to report an issue or issues have overwhelmed the campaign, lifting the electorate into a tsunami of interest. No one has indicated this.
Instead there is an us-against-them campaign, challengers wishing to upset the status quo. The only thing odd about it would be if the incumbent mayor was defeated in his party primary. This has never happened in Bridgeport.

There are issues, of course. They are linked to the mayor’s style of decision-making: as secretly as possible. From an inside-baseball perspective it is intriguing how many former Finch supporters are now supporting Foster. Foster herself served as chairwoman of the mayor’s transition team four years ago. They are almost universally disappointed in how he chose to govern. How this translates to voters remains.

Then-state Sen. Bill Finch won very narrowly over former state Rep. Chris Caruso four years ago. Caruso is out of the picture these days after taking a job in the Malloy administration. In the normal flow of things, one might suspect those Democrats who supported Caruso would fall in line with their Democratic mayor. But Caruso made his reputation in Bridgeport politics as an outsider running against the status quo for years. Those voters, and Bridgeport has always had them, might like the (new) outsider status of Foster running against the entrenched establishment.

An argument could be made the Finch spin-offs to Foster plus former Caruso Democrats might make formidable competition. But the Democratic Party establishment didn’t get that way by losing. The committee people and elected officials supporting the mayor know the lay of the land and know what to do to get elected.

Foster’s opposition coalition to Finch only coalesced this year. Most Democratic Party revolts here in the past have taken longer to get together. Bridgeport politics involves linking a number of neighborhoods into a common feeling. That takes time, persuasion, and organization. Have the Foster people had time enough? Mayor Finch has had four years to persuade people that he should be their leader and has the supporters to help him.

Only in Bridgeport polling has consistently showed the mayor to be supported by about 40 percent of past Democratic voters. That’s usually enough for an incumbent. The disgruntled have to find their way to the voting booth. An opposition to the mayor has to convince them it is worth the effort.

The mayor has been given extraordinarily difficult times to govern with the lingering national recession. He has coerced labor concessions to cut costs or face layoffs. Bridgeport is difficult to govern in the best of times. Its tax base was manufacturing. When that collapsed here, as in other places in the Northeast and Midwest, hard times fell not only on workers but residential taxpayers forced to take up the slack to run municipal government.

It has led to several voter revolts here since the 1970. Politicians interested in continued employment in elective office have time and again tried to duck the reality with budgets that don’t balance, taking expenses forward. The maneuvers were complicated enough to cause financial collapse in 1988 when an inadequate accounting system ran head on into inadequate revenues. The city went bust and ended up with a state-appointed review board monitoring finances through the mid 90s.

Critics charge the city is headed in that direction again. The Finch administration has been tardy releasing financial information through its term. Of particular concern to critics is millions in unfunded pension liabilities from sour investments and a lack of adequate yearly funding. This issue historically does not resonate with citizens in Bridgeport until they see a whopper of a tax increase. The Finch administration has avoided that outcome so far. The Foster people have tried to explain one is coming.

Then there is public education. It has functioned poorly for years. The mayor moved suddenly for a state takeover. He succeeded. It then came out the matter was planned for some months, secretly. The Foster people have vigorously protested. Public reaction appears muted. A question in the election will be acceptance by voters of the action. There has been no certain indicator of the public temperature. The Finch forces say that there is none, people are OK with them.

If that is so, then the following is of little concern. I’m running these out here more because I am intrigued by the questions. The Democratic Party of Bridgeport, which is usually fighting, is somewhat quiet. This would normally be thought of as a good thing. The split, however, is there. They were divided enough to have separate headquarters for different factions in last year’s gubernatorial election. The result went well, but. The mayor inherited a split party four years ago. That party then gave him Mario Testa as Democratic chairman, who was not the mayor’s pick. They have made nice.

In what may or may not mean anything, the mayor was endorsed by acclamation by the Democratic town committee. No other name was placed into nomination. The votes reportedly would have favored Finch overwhelmingly, but in Bridgeport politics it is bad practice to give someone a pass on a vote. At least not the way I was edjamacated by Bridgeport pols. It gives someone a chance to duck. But balance those random thoughts with the overwhelming public support of elected officials for the mayor. Maybe it means nothing.

Finally, and most importantly today, is the continued state of tension inside the election system itself. Allegations of fraud in voting in Bridgeport are pretty standard. Most of them are baloney. They seem higher this year. When they are substantiated in some way, they are usually intraparty affairs. Democrats love beating up Democrats in Bridgeport, by fair means and sometimes foul. And when they are foul, they can be most foul.

The Registrars of Voters office has been under criticism–some severe–for not administering elections tightly enough. The Secretary of the State’s Office said it was monitoring the situation today.

The absentee ballot numbers have caused some alarm. Fraud, however, is generally difficult to detect, until after the act.