A historic election has grabbed the attention of The New York Times. Reporter Kristin Hussey does an excellent job capturing the political circus with a deserved nod to OIB posters. Keep those comments coming. As Mayor Bill Finch says, it’s all about the clicks!
In the months since Joseph P. Ganim announced his bid to reclaim the mayoralty of this city, a job he left in disgrace, Lennie Grimaldi has recorded every microdevelopment in a race that has grown into a full-fledged political circus.
“How often do you see a situation where a mayoral candidate who did seven years in the joint comes back to win his party’s nomination?” Mr. Grimaldi, who writes a blog called Only in Bridgeport, said …
Page views on Mr. Grimaldi’s blog hit a record high on primary night, as he continually updated the latest poll numbers. He said his readership had continued to grow.Mr. Adams, the former F.B.I. agent, is a reader of Only in Bridgeport, but not just for Mr. Grimaldi’s posts.
“The comments are really crazy sometimes,” he said. “Oh boy.”
Full story here.
Awesome!
Mr. Adams, though the story says it is bizarre you wave at people you sent to jail, I think your participation is bizarre also. Though Mr. Ganim is said to be the only candidate with experience in running the city, he is also the only candidate with experience in ruining the city. This is seen as a possible sentencing of Bridgeport’s near future to the dark ages of loss of federal and state funding, not to mention the national headlines it will immediately attract as being one of maybe three cities in recent memory where residents chose something who is unbelievable to people who do not have a nostalgic folk hero sense of their political characters. Yes, he ran the city for a long time, I remember a portion of that time was very dark and dangerous, he did some things to help it prior to crashing and burning the reputation of the city for over a decade. You may think the comments on this site are really crazy sometimes, I think political affiliations are much crazier, all the time.
Congratulations Lennie, a most deserved acknowledgement! I have a cousin who writes for the TIMES Frances “Frenchie” Robles, check her out.
Congratulations! Proud to know you!!!
Lennie, you look great in that picture! Congratulations!
I was there the day the Times reporter interviewed Lennie. The story has evolved almost daily since then.
There’s been talk comparing The Crook to Marion Barry and Buddy Cianci, two pols who were imprisoned and then re-elected. There’s a big difference. Barry was imprisoned on drug charges (one piece of evidence was a video of Hizzoner smoking crack with a prostitute in a Washington DC hotel room). Drugs can be explained away, as Johnny Fabs well knows. (Testifying as a character witness for a convicted child molester is a bit more problematic.)
In 1984 Buddy Cianci pleaded no contest in a Rhode Island court to an assault charge after beating a man he suspected of having an affair with Mrs. Cianci, and resigned from office. He was re-elected in 1990 and presided over Providence’s “Renaissance” phase. He was re-elected in 1994 and 1998. The Feds indicted him on racketeering charges in 2001. He was convicted of a single count of racketeering conspiracy and served five years. After that he never held public office again.
There are too many people shocked and appalled that a man convicted of ripping off the city and running the mayor’s office like a mafia trucking firm would have the temerity to run again. Too many people will do everything possible to prevent that. Retired FBI Agent Wolf, in speaking out, has made it clear the Federal authorities are watching the election. If The Crook and Mario Testa try to manipulate ABs or buy votes at 20 bucks a pop, it may well show up on the FBI’s radar.
Former Mayor, Marion Barry served time in jail and got elected in Washington DC.
He served time on a drug charge, not corruption. There’s a big difference. Barry was elected to the DC City Council before re-election to the mayor’s office, where he served honorably.
Very actual, factual and fair. Not the horror story predicted by the national press.
If you’re referring to the press a Ganim re-election will stir, that has not happened yet and hopefully will not. However if voter turnout is low and apathy reigns, then the absentee ballots and possible bought votes, as well as those who remember the good side of the Ganim years will have their choice. There is definitely a big apparatus always in the works to bring out the vote in Bridgeport, let the voters come out in large numbers and have their voices heard. If it is a small turnout, then it is over before it starts. Vote for whomever you wish, just vote. Torres. www .torresforbpt.com. A mayor who will not owe any favors but to The People themselves.
The following appeared in this morning’s Connecticut Post:
I was disappointed to read Brian Lockhart’s and Frank Juliano’s article of Oct. 22 regarding the Bridgeport mayoral race. That article falsely implied that I had not endorsed Rick Torres for mayor. The fact is, while I did not include an express endorsement in my prior letter to the editor that they referenced, I had previously endorsed Rick on the Only in Bridgeport blog. I had also contributed the maximum amount allowed by law to his campaign prior to writing that letter.
In addition, my wife and I have already voted by absentee ballot for Rick. We did so because he is honest, hard-working, dedicated to improving Bridgeport, has not made any political deals, and is committed to having a merit-based, results-oriented and bi-partisan administration. I encourage others to support Rick to help create a better future in Bridgeport.
David M. Walker
I realize this page is a deserved congratulations page for Lennie. On the note of the substance of Dave Walker’s statement his endorsement of Rick Torres was ignored or the article, “falsely implied that I had not endorsed Rick Torres for mayor,” this has been par for the course throughout the election. Front-page stories have been falsely written. Torres has not had press-releases taken into consideration. I believe if the readership on OIB could see from the perspective of being inside a candidate’s campaign where the major news outlet has been actively working again you, under cover of free press, they would not like it, even if the slant is in favor of your candidate. Ganim has been hammered, not because the paper is morally outraged he could be re-elected, but because they are in the business camp of Finch, Foster if you insist, and are using editorial powers to persuade. That is fine in the endorsement, but when you rearrange wording such as at the end of an article, where they mention Torres and finish with “perception matters,” well, the perception was the Ganim part, but they link it to Torres at the end to try to link him to perception problems in Bridgeport. It is sophisticated, but on a really basic level. So how many of you know Dave Walker endorses Torres? It passed this blog last week he endorses Foster, because of the misrepresentation in the Post. A vote for anyone other than Torres is a vote to continue information suppression and secrecy of business, etc. in Bridgeport. Did the Post conveniently tell you Sikorsky airport was shut down, because the Finch administration thought it was okay to pass an un-credentialed person off at its helm? They probably were not going to touch that until after the election. Why? They are setting up to endorse Foster. That’s fine, but they will manipulate the hell out of things on their way to it.
Actually Lennie, the story is more about you who fell from grace, did your time away from home and family, reflected on how to use your skills and spirit to operate in the public sphere once again and serve the public, and still put bread on the table.
You have found an audience with whom you interact daily, in person, by phone and through other media. Your crown jewel for most of us is this “big news and opinion room” you branded ONLY IN BRIDGEPORT (where the audience becomes accustomed to the unusual and often absurd)!
Writing for the NYTimes would be exciting, but so is being written about respectfully. Bridgeport today would not be what it is without OIB on the scene daily to allow newsmakers and news reporters to interact in front of the public, and that makes for additional sophistication of an informed readership, and we need that. What’s next? Perhaps an audition at Carnegie Hall? Time will tell.
I am still waiting for a response from Mickey Herbert as to why he endorsed Joe Ganim over his business partner Mary-Jane Foster.
Congratulations, Lennie! This is really cool. You deserve it!
Lennie, this is golden, for you and for the city. Congratulations!
At a time when the cynics among us wonder who is buying whom or what in this year’s election, one thing is for sure: You can’t buy this kind of coverage in the New York Times. It just comes to you, Lennie, because you’ve worked hard to make your own good luck.
You’ll have to let is know in the next few days how the mix of clicks on OIB has changed. You’ve gone all “national” on us and I bet it’s going to show up gratifyingly in your analytics. Will you share the good news with us?
If it wasn’t before, OIB is now one of the blogs major media will henceforth check when reporters and others who feed on news will check out when they want to put an ear to the ground on what’s going on in Connecticut.
OIB contributes to making Bridgeport understandable to itself. Now OIB contributes to making Bridgeport understandable to the nation and the world. Whatever will you do for an encore?
Well-deserved, Lennie! If it weren’t for OIB, most Bridgeport voters wouldn’t have access to any essential state and local-level political information. (Maybe you’re showing the Times how to set up for the political reporting of the future! As it has been said; “all politics is local.”)
Very nice!
Did they mean to take the picture in front of the boarded-up section of the museum?
Yes, congratulations are in order. Lennie, you have in fact helped to make Bridgeport known to itself, at least the portion who check into your site. From there, it’s influence filters into the community at large. Thank you for the opportunity to battle it out for our beliefs, we would not have any other forum like it otherwise. Thank you for the editing, not of content, but spelling, capitalization; I have seen my misses you or your staff fixed. Here’s to many more years of OIB, and to the national standing you have just gained to whatever degree that is. Cheers.
Well-deserved recognition for Lennie.
It’s always cool when the New York Times writes something about Bridgeport.