Watch the full video of the New Haven County Republican Assembly Round Table Discussion About the 2022 Elections. What went wrong? What went right? What do we do next?
On December 6, 2022, barely a month after CT Republicans failed to win any statewide or federal offices, the New Haven County Republican Assembly hosted a Round Table Discussion to review what happened in the elections and what we could do going forward. Former CT State Senator Joe Markley was originally scheduled to participate but was unable to do so due to unforeseen circumstances. Former CT State Senator Len Suzio was able to kindly fill in for him at the last minute. Len joined the panel alongside Lesley DeNardis, PhD and Jonathan Wharton, PhD.
Watch the full video below:
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00.570] - Jeff Weiss
We have tonight with us Lesley DeNardis. Lesley was the 2022 candidate Republican candidate for Connecticut's Third Congressional District. She's taught Poly-Sci at Sacred Heart University, and she presently provides political political data consulting services. And she is also the Vice President of Academic Affairs at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell. And I just want to say, as a candidate for Congress, Lesley got the second highest percentage of votes in her congressional races as Ben had touched upon, and that was just behind George Logan. And she did this with a budget of only, we're going to say it: $40,000. Some of you gave, a lot of people didn't, but with $40,000, only $40,000 versus Rosa DeLauro's definitely over a million bucks, she outperformed the previous two Republican candidates for the Third Congressional and probably further back than that since the previous Republican congressman was her father. So running and hope you do it again.
[00:01:12.250] - Jeff Weiss
And Len Suzio. Len is the only Republican since 1972 to be elected in the 13th State Senate district. He lost a seat, and he also won it back. So both very close races in a very, very Democrat district. So he's no stranger to close races, and he knows how to win in a Democrat district. And he is also a nationally recognized expert in federal banking regulations. That's the day job.
[00:01:41.390] - Jeff Weiss
And then Professor Jonathan Wharton. Jonathan's social professor at poly sci at Southern. He's a frequent contributor to NPR stations as well as CT News Junkie, and he's a Hearst Media (Hearst CT) columnist for the New Haven Register and the Connecticut Post discussing state and local issues. So, anyway, we're going to start off real quick. We're just going to go through some ten agreed upon issues / questions, and this is going to be a quick lightning round. Jonathan, I'll tell you what, once you start us off, the the first question is, what do you think were major negative factors for the Republicans in this election?
[00:02:21.800] - Jonathan Wharton
Well, Jeff, you're going to make me start off with that, especially after we have the party chairman say otherwise.
[00:02:26.980] - Jeff Weiss
60 seconds.
[00:02:28.040] - Jonathan Wharton
Absolutely. Well, I will say this. I think that it's a great uphill battle to come up with that messaging that we're all looking for in this room and the shape that it should be done internally, unfortunately, was not. That has to be crafted, and it's not been quite done. I don't blame the state party or anything locally. It's just a matter of the law. This has got to come organically within the communities. So I think that's got to be shaped. I think that was a negative. It was messaging. Okay.
[00:02:55.900] - Jeff Weiss
And Len?
[00:02:58.090] - Len Suzio
Yeah. I think the top of the ticket is important to any election. And Bob Stefanowski, who I was the first elected official to endorse Bob Stefanowski five years ago when he was first seeking the the nomination. Okay. And of course, he did get the nomination and went out to run against Ned Lamont. He lost by only- he lost to Ned Lamont, I believe, by only about 2% at that point in time. And unfortunately, this time around, he lost by even a greater percentage. And I do think a lot of it had to do with a failure to articulate the issues. When you run ads, you know, talking about how handsome you are or whatever, it's like, I don't think those are particularly effective ads. And and I like Bob, but I also have to be honest, I think he didn't run a very good campaign. He put in $10 million of his own money or something like that in it. But we learned as a party, I would think, that self funded candidates - I love Linda McMahon - $50 million at the pop and of course, before that, Tom Foley, he self funded one time, I think one public fund the other time.
[00:04:11.820] - Len Suzio
But you've got to learn to articulate issues in a way that makes people respond. And I volunteered. I told Bob, I said, I can help you articulate a couple of really touchstone issues, like the crime issue and all that, because I was involved with the early release program and all these people have been let out of jail early and go on to commit these horrendous crimes. And then I said to them, look it, if you want a winning issue this year, it's going to be the cost of electricity, the cost of energy. And I said, the best way to demonstrate that is get in front of the media. And you have two bills side by side. One is your Eversource bill and the other is your Wallingford Electric Division bill, which is half the Eversource bill. And so if the war in Ukraine and all this other stuff that's being used to blame as a reason for the high electricity costs, well, as far as I know, Wallingford Electric gets their electricity - they don't have a power plant - they buy it on the open market, just like Eversource does. And yet they're they're half the price of Eversource.
[00:05:11.910] - Len Suzio
So you have to say, Why? What's the difference? And you know what it is? It's the imposition of mandates on Eversource and United illuminating to pass on renewable energy costs, et cetera, to them at an increasing cost, plus all the other little funny add-ons that add up in your electric bill. You don't see them. They're not broken up. They're all as little teeny footnotes. So I said, what you've got to do is make energy at the high energy cost of energy. You got to blame it on the Democratic Party, which is true. It's not making things up and show that they are the cause of why Connecticut has become more and more unaffordable as a state. And that I can't think of a more concrete way to do that in politics, you've got to have something physical to show people that you're not talking pie in the sky, you're talking something reality. And having two electric bills side by side, one from a town in the middle of Connecticut that has the same issues as Eversource buying electricity. It's half the price, so I'm past 1 minute, but I hope that helps out.
[00:06:11.750] - Jeff Weiss
Okay. Thank you.
[00:06:13.190] - Jeff Weiss
Lesley.
[00:06:13.840] - Lesley DeNardis
Thank you. They are very serious about this time limit. I'm looking at a clock right in front of me. First of all, what a great honor to have been a candidate for Congress. It was an experience of a lifetime, and I think it was a tremendously valuable learning experience. So I'm going to answer the questions from the vantage point of having been a congressional candidate during this election cycle. So the conventional thinking was that inflation was going to be our golden ticket to victory, right? We were handed this ready made issue, compliments of the Democrats, that we could run on. And I know this will sound controversial, but I'm going to say that inflation and the economy should have propelled us to victory, but it was really kind of a double edged sword in that it was both a negative and a positive. So a poor economy should have propelled us to victory, but I think it lulled us into this false sense of complacency, right, where all the candidates were falling all over each other to beat this drum about the inflation, the inflation. But I don't think that that was necessarily a winning message because we all seemed to buy into this idea about an inevitable red wave due to the bad economy.
[00:07:28.610] - Lesley DeNardis
And I think what that did was it gave us, as I said, a false sense of complacency, also creating kind of a bandwagon effect in which Republicans had almost this aura of invincibility. It's sort of like, how can people not see this? Right? And there were times when I questioned it myself, and I certainly spoke a great deal about inflation myself. I'm not saying I did otherwise, but what it prevented us from doing is really drilling down and talking about values, right? So the inflation in the economy it's the economy, stupid, as James Carville once said. We think that that's definitely a winning issue, but it really caused us to avoid talking about true values and morals and things that are more meaningful to connect with voters. Also, we never know if voters truly connect the dots on the economy. So to me, to all of us, it should be plain and simple and clear. The bad economy, the Democrats did it, therefore you should vote for us. They don't always see it like that. And I think that was our big mistake into believing, into buying into that, that how could voters not see the problem and blame the current administration.
[00:08:37.750] - Lesley DeNardis
So I think we should have had a distinct platform or message beyond just, yes, we would manage the economy better and tackle inflation. I think voters hungered for something more. And I know I saw even on candidate facebook pages, voters were getting a little bit fed up all the time hearing about candidates talking about inflation. It's sort of like the weather. You complain about it, everybody complains, but we can really do something about it. So we have to address issues. We can't run from the fact that we're Republicans anymore. And I think a lot of the candidates I saw were hoping that if we're just good enough and we're just moderate enough, maybe they won't notice that we're Republican. I don't think that's the way that we should go about it.
[00:09:21.330] - Jeff Weiss
Okay.
[00:09:26.470] - Jeff Weiss
Lesley, Continuing with that, why don't you tell us what do you think the major positives for the Republicans in this election were?
[00:09:34.520] - Lesley DeNardis
All right, well, I think it's the flip side. So I said it was a double edged sword, inflation. I do think in a certain respect, the bad economy was also a positive. Now, I think that we dwelled a lot on the economy to the exclusion of a lot of other issues. But I do think it helps us. I think it got us to the point where voters, it got us a sort of a hearing with voters. Let's just say it got us through the front door, but it got people to listen. But it really wasn't enough to get us across the finish line. We didn't really change their minds, but we certainly didn't change their hearts. I don't think we fully utilize this advantage, this opportunity to our advantage. We should have used this as a time to sell our ideas, to say, now that you we've got your attention, we know the economy, is that what would we do differently to really tackle it, but personalize it more? And I think that's where we kind of fell short on bringing it to the hearts of voters.
[00:10:41.790] - Jeff Weiss
Thank you.
[00:10:43.470] - Jeff Weiss
Jonathan.
[00:10:44.910] - Jonathan Wharton
Well, actually, I really wanted to get to this question. As a matter of fact, I got a phone call from a certain party chairman last week about this, and I am in agreement with Chairman Proto. The fact that we've got this national money, the money comes from the National Party is a big deal. You all have no clue what that's like. Now, of course, I'm a retired State Central Committee member. I only served my one term. You all don't want me. That's not true. I retired. But I realized early on, a couple of years back, getting that national intention I'm sorry, I've been losing my voice. So thank you. Oh, I appreciate it. Because I've been losing my voice for the last two days. At the end of the semester, I can only lecture so much. Thing is that the fundraising elements is a big deal. The fact that the national party gave the money to these candidates is even a bigger deal. So Chairman Proto is right. $5 million is something to take seriously, and you got national intentions to resolve these congressional races. So that is a big deal. Let me tell you something.
[00:11:51.590] - Jonathan Wharton
Not even if it's a former State Central Committee member or even if it's a former RTC chairman, as the former congressional aide. Lesley knows this because we're always talking about Congress all the time. As a former congressional aide for Chris Shays and others, getting that national attention and getting the national Party to give the money is a big deal. I wonder what it's going to be like, going back to what Chairman Proto said, two years from now, because eventually somebody like Roses DeLauro, I'm not even thinking about Rosa DeLauro. She's got to retire. We know that's going to happen any day now. I'm thinking about also John Larson. I'm also thinking about Courtney. I mean, we have to think about a lot of these lawmakers who are there who aren't going to be there two to eight years from now. I'm getting generous on eight, probably six. But the fact that we got the national party to give them money, what a big deal that is. My question and challenge to everybody is, are we going to see the same thing happen the next time around and more money and more attention? Because we can do this.
[00:12:49.930] - Jonathan Wharton
It's not that we can't. I know we can. But having that national Party backing is a big deal. So I think that was a positive thing and way overdue. Would that go beyond a minute?
[00:13:01.230] - Jeff Weiss
We're good?
[00:13:01.760] - Jonathan Wharton
We're good.
[00:13:02.240] - Jeff Weiss
All right. Thanks.
[00:13:03.210] - Jeff Weiss
And, Len, what are your thoughts?
[00:13:04.640] - Len Suzio
Yeah, a couple of things. One is, while it was a tendency to despair, looking at the legislature is still overwhelmingly controlled by the Democratic Party. When you take a look at it, you realize how many races were pretty closely contested. And when you look at a party like the Democratic Party that has all the resources and advantages it has, controlling all the levels of state government, all the patronage positions, et cetera, and plus the media, the major media is pretty much in their favor as well. You think they should be totally annihilating the Republican Party. It shouldn't even be close. Nevertheless, it has been close in a lot of races. It was disappointing it wasn't closer in the gubernatorial race. Also, I'm very encouraged by the Hispanic population and its potential role in the Republican Party. I saw that on a national basis. You saw down in Florida when Ron DeSantis won counties, Broward County and Miami Dade, that had never been won but have been decades before since a Republican won and their big Hispanic vote there. He did very, very well. So I think that recruiting and getting the Hispanic population behind the Republican Party because they are social conservatives, there's no doubt about that.
[00:14:17.280] - Len Suzio
And there's a lot of their values, family values that coincide with the Republican Party. Now, I have to confess one thing, but Joe Markley asked me to fill then tonight. He asked me yesterday to, he said he had COVID, and I said, well, who else is speaking. He said, well, there's Lesley Dinardis, PhD. And there's Jonathan Wharton, PhD. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, I got these two intellectual giants. I'm going to be in between. What can I say? That is like going to mesmerize a crowd. So I said a little prayer, and lo and behold, this morning I woke up and in my local newspaper there's a big headline: "What DeSantis and the rest of the GOP can learn from Karl Marx." The New York Times, of course, published it in the interest of helping the Republican Party out. I won't go into. Jonathan and Lesley, as intellectuals, I'm certain you might want to read this and learn about how Karl Marx can teach the Republican Party something
[00:15:10.930] - Jeff Weiss
okay, great.
[00:15:16.070] - Jeff Weiss
We've already touched on messaging, but let's go on just a little bit further. I think we've identified some issues with messaging. What can we do better?
[00:15:29.320] - Jeff Weiss
What can we do better? Len, do you want to address that?
[00:15:31.290] - Len Suzio
Yeah, absolutely. Again, if you ask me why I won in a district that hadn't been won by a Republican for 50 years, and it's overwhelmingly Democrat, -' aside from divine intervention, I had the nuns up with the Franciscan community praying for me, and I think that was definitely a factor. But you have to be able to articulate issues that are flesh and blood issues and give people it can't be abstract. That's the problem with inflation. It's there, but it's kind of abstract. Now, the price of the pump gas, okay, every time you're pumping and filling your car up for $100, that resonates, okay? And the same thing with the crime issue and this crazy early release law that we have in the state of Connecticut, where thousands of these criminals are, with a violent history, are being let loose, and they they have not been rehabilitated. I can tell you. In my case, in my hometown, one of them murdered a poor, elderly gas station owner six months after he was discharged early from prison because of this law. So again, I offered Bob Stefanowski and the opportunity to give him some meat on this because I tracked it.
[00:16:30.900] - Len Suzio
I have all the data and statistics about all these crimes, thousands of violent crimes, rape, murder, etc. being committed by these people. But Bob didn't take advantage of it for whatever reason. He just decided. And I think the problem is that when you run as a candidate and you have no experience politically, that's a big disadvantage. You don't know what you're getting into. I know I made a lot of mistakes when I first got into politics thinking, oh, it's just another form of business. And so I think if people are going to run, 50 million didn't make any difference for Linda McMahon. And I don't mean to disparage Linda or Bob or Tom Foley either. They worked hard to win and they put their money out, that's for sure. But we need to, it's not doing them a favor just to let them loose without, I think, some good preparation. So that's that.
[00:17:18.620] - Jeff Weiss
Thank you.
[00:17:19.310] - Jeff Weiss
Lesley.
[00:17:20.050] - Lesley DeNardis
Okay, so I'm just going to speak from my vantage point as my own as a candidate and not really remark on what others did, although I could see that there were certain top line themes that congressional candidates had. In my respective race, I had the perfect political foil in my opponent in that she was a 30 year incumbent. And so my campaign really touched upon populist themes, sort of we the people. We are fed up with politics as usual. It's David versus Goliath. The elites are not listening to us. So she really represented, I think it's really candidate specific, campaign specific even in my campaign. It offered the opportunity to touch upon those things, which I think did get some traction with people. Everybody wants to think like, we are in it together. We the people against the establishment. I think that was helpful. I think where I could do better in the future is not be as much of a policy wonk. And that's my political science professor background. I tend to know too much about policy.
[00:18:19.380] - Jonathan Wharton
Occupational hazard, professor.
[00:18:20.680] - Lesley DeNardis
It's an occupational hazard. So I really need to always have people ground me and bring me down and say, just talk to people, to their hearts, and not just to their minds. But that's what I would probably do a little differently.
[00:18:32.550] - Jeff Weiss
Okay. Excellent.
[00:18:35.010] - Jonathan Wharton
Messaging is never easy, but I think connecting with people is easier. And I've discovered one thing throughout the years. Part of the problem, even in Connecticut, is a lot of people don't know somebody who's a Republican or even worse. Even worse, or in the closet about it. I had to find out this evening about a student I had no clue who was a Republican. I said, I can't believe you never told me this. Why didn't you ever say? Oh, I'm not comfortable in the classroom. I said, but you know what I am. Oh, yeah, but I see you squirming your shoes. You put up with it, fine. I can't and I'm just floored at this. I mean, there's almost a shame that we know in terms of embracing or understanding it , but the same time, a lot of people don't know fellow Republicans or other Republicans. Why? We don't admit to it. And the candidates don't proclaim it as well. But the biggest ordeal that I have to face, just on the front lines I know candidates always faces is the majority of people in Connecticut and America are unaffiliated voters. Going back to Paul said, we forget that fact.
[00:19:35.930] - Jonathan Wharton
And so we got to better find a better way to outreach candidates, grassroots party elites. Everybody in this room. Got to be a better way of doing that kind of messaging across the board.
[00:19:47.530] - Len Suzio
Could I just say one thing, if I might? One of the hottest button issues of all of course, is the abortion issue, right? And no matter where you stand on it, I mean, apparently it was a big factor in favor of Democrats if you read what the media are saying at this point in time. Now, let's take the case here in Connecticut. I talked to Bob Stefanowski about this issue. I'm very pro life, so I'm not equivocating about that. But I said, Bob, look it, you believe in parental notification when a 13 or 14 year old is going to have an abortion. I would bet you 90% of the pro choice public would agree with that. You ought to attack Lamont on that because he's coming after you like you're going to send women to the back alleys and this and that, even though Bob declared himself to be pro choice. So if you're on the defense in politics, you're losing. You have to take something like that and turn it around on your opponent and make them on the defensive. And that would have put Ned Lamont on defensive. But every time Bob brought it up, it was, he didn't bring it up the media would bring it up to him.
[00:20:46.140] - Len Suzio
And he would be very sheepish and shy and defensive about it. And that sends a message to the public that he doesn't really believe what he's saying. You got to believe what you're saying. It's not just a message, it's how you say it. You have to be passionate. You have to be. Credibility is really, really important. If they think you're just spouting slogans that don't mean anything, then your credibility is gone. And credibility is the only thing you've got in politics when it comes down to it. So sorry about that.
[00:21:12.140] - Jeff Weiss
No, it's perfect. That was one of the questions. Let's keep going then, Lesley, on that, on following this up. What effect did the overturning of Roe versus Wade have on the election? What do you think?
[00:21:25.100] - Lesley DeNardis
Well, I think it had some effect. It's not clear if it was an overriding effect or a decisive effect. I would say, though, and I remember encountering a friend in about June or July, and he said that decision, you all just lost the election. I said, Hold on, I'm not so sure about that. I think the the effect is going to be largely dissipated by the time the election rolls around. But I will say this, you know, I do think that the media was using that as a litmus test to candidates on the trail. I was holding my breath, waiting for the moment when I would be confronted by the media about this. In fact, ensnared by the media might be a better way of putting it. I do think we need to get more comfortable talking about this issue. This group makes it abundantly clear that the Republican Party platform says that we are pro life. And I will point that out, and I was fully prepared to answer the question. And so on. I was asked by, I think, a Channel Eight reporter and a Channel Three reporter about this. I I tried to answer it in a truthful way, but in a way that was more nuanced.
[00:22:39.670] - Lesley DeNardis
So I said, first and foremost, I approach this question as a person of faith, because I do, I am pro life, and I'm not going to run from that. Then I said, though I agree with the Supreme Court decision turning it back to the states, I think they rightfully placed it in the realm of state government. And I feel like that was correctly and properly decided. Why? Because it allows state legislative officials to reflect the will of the people in their individual state. And because we're a big country with lots of different regional and different political cultures, I think that's the right way to go. But I think as Republicans, we are very reticent to talk about this issue or at least stand on firm ground because we feel that that's going to make us lose elections. I think we've just got to get braver. And I think there are some Republicans who deviate from the platform. I'm not here to, you know, pass judgment on them. I will just say that this is how I approach it. But I also think that we need to get more comfortable talking about it.
[00:23:46.630] - Jeff Weiss
Jonathan, what do you think?
[00:23:49.590] - Jonathan Wharton
Rolling the eyes, of course. I think the thing that came out of this with the abortion issue is this. And I was fascinated with the media, this assumption that if you're Republicans, you got to be this. You're Democrats are that okay? You know what gets lost in this? Both sides is somewhere between a quarter and a third are actually the other way around. There are a number of people who are pro choice who are Republicans. We tend to forget that because the party is because part of it, the media is framing it this way. The other thing is, guess what? I got news for you. There are a lot of Democrats who are actually pro life.
[00:24:23.170] - Jonathan Wharton
You got a state Rep in West Haven who is. McGee. and I used to laugh all the time. Michele, you should have seen me in class. And my students are like, the hell is Wharton drinking or smoking or what? I'm like, do you not know she's pro-life? But she's a Democrat. That's the assumption. You're blue, you're this, you're red, you're that.
[00:24:41.400] - Jonathan Wharton
Whoa. It's more nuanced than that. And anybody who's read my column, especially this past spring about this realizes it's a very complex issue, but the media will frame it as a certain way. And guess what? The Democrats ran with it, and it upsets me. Seriously. You can't just define this exactly this or that. And, you know, one thing they went on that. It's just bizarre, but that's where it's been. And that's what happened, I think, blew up in this election. But I think they're also making a bigger deal than they should, quite frankly. But that's my opinion.
[00:25:12.790] - Jeff Weiss
Okay, thank you.
[00:25:14.950] - Jeff Weiss
Continuing on with national issues and Jonathon, I'm going to let you hit this one first. President Trump - what effect do you think he had on the election in Connecticut? We'll talk about just Connecticut.
[00:25:29.950] - Jonathan Wharton
Well, I think the thing is that the Democrats have articulated that we all know this, that if you're a Republican, you're a Trump person. You're a Trump person no matter what. Again, it's another complex issue. Not everybody's down the line that way. So I think that they politicize that to the degree where it actually helped them out in some respects, and so it does work for them. But, yeah, he did have an effect. I'm not going to deny that. That has been my opinion from the beginning. I think the bigger question is going to be, are they going to use this now for these municipal races? Because that's just ridiculous. But it's going to happen. It's going to happen. You know that.
[00:26:13.190] - Len Suzio
I think he did have an impact, although I don't know how clear cut it is. I know when I campaigned back in 2018, the last time I ran for office, I was knocking on doors, which I did all the time, and you get direct input from voters. And the Republicans I talked to in Cheshire were almost all angry about Trump. They were going to vote against Republican candidates, not because of what we stood for, but simply because they were taking it out on the head of the party, you know, Donald Trump. I'll tell you, it was one day I was making phone calls. It was raining, so I couldn't go knocking on doors. So I started phone calling, and this little old lady answered the phone. And so I asked her. I told her who I was, this and that. And then she said to me, she said, do you support Donald Trump? And I'm like, I don't want to hear this, because whatever I say, I don't know where she's coming from. And I wanted to vote for me because of me, not because of Donald Trump. But I said, Well, I support his policies and blah, blah, blah.
[00:27:08.960] - Len Suzio
And I think that he was taken advantage of, et cetera, and his personality, unfortunately, Trumped his policies in many people's minds. And she said, well, I love him. And I said she said, and do you know why? I don't know why. And I said, yeah. She said, I have a personal story to tell you. Well, this will be very quick. She said, My husband was a big Trump supporter. He died a few years ago and left me with lots of real estate, but cash poor. So she said, I was in deep trouble with the banks. And she said, I always remember my husband talking about Trump this and that. She said, so I decided to call his headquarters, not his public headquarters. But his corporate headquarters down in New York and see if he could help me out. So she called. She never spoke to him. She spoke to some people. Three days later, she got a phone call from a major New York center bank saying, we're going to refinance your mortgage, and you can thank Donald Trump for that. This is, by the way, before he ever ran for public office. So this wasn't a publicity stunt or anything like that.
[00:28:12.620] - Len Suzio
I said, wow, that's just something about Trump that's totally, almost contrary to his public image of being a tough guy and you're fired. Totally unfeeling, and that kind of a thing. But to go back to it, I don't know whether it was decisive or not. I know it tended to vote and motivate Republicans in a negative way. And when you're running in a tight race, that could be the difference. I don't think it motivated Democrats so much as it motivated some Republicans to turn on their own party candidate. That's based on my anecdotal experience.
[00:28:46.250] - Jeff Weiss
Lesley, what was your experience? What do you think?
[00:28:49.370] - Lesley DeNardis
On the campaign trail again, waiting with bated breath or holding my breath, much like the Dobbs decision, I thought, OK, here we have yet another minefield potential minefield to walk through. I think it's also interesting how the Democrats always seem to be administering these litmus tests to us as Republicans, or the media. And the Dobbs decision was sort of one litmus test, and then the Trump question was the other litmus test. And so I don't think I was ever posed this question by reporters, but I was on the campaign trail. I remember being at this Greek Odyssey festival. We had two people who were really, really adamant about me taking a stand on Trump, and I tried to explain to them in a very calm way. I said his policies were effective, but I didn't find his persona to be very appealing. And that is the truth. That's a nuanced truthful answer. Oh, no, you've got to take a stand. You must renounce, you must denounce him. Why are they setting the terms of the debate? Why do they get to frame the debate? I reject that notion. I think we've got to stop playing into letting them set the terms of the debate for us.
[00:30:13.010] - Jeff Weiss
Since you mentioned that, I want to veer a little bit off of our preset questions. How do we do that?
[00:30:20.710] - Lesley DeNardis
Oh, how? I don't know. The devil is in the details. How do we do that? I just think by being firm and we've got to just say, excuse me, I don't really understand why you think you can set the terms of the debate. Let me ask the question. Let me frame it in such a way I think we just have to step up but no, we danced around or we, kind of, I shouldn't speak for others, but there's this again, this fearfulness that I see this squeamishness. We've got to get braver, at least, just to say I can be a rational, reasonable person and acknowledge that the economy was booming two, three years ago, that is just an objective fact and a reality, and we don't have to like somebody's persona to agree on all these objective standards. So I think just speaking up more and not letting them we don't have to play into their narratives.
[00:31:21.210] - Jeff Weiss
I knew you'd have the answer.
[00:31:24.570] - Jeff Weiss
Jonathan, what do you think?
[00:31:26.490] - Jeff Weiss
Well, I think a part of it is that we know that the media plays a big role in this, too, Lesley, right?
[00:31:32.780] - Lesley DeNardis
Oh, they are the proponent. They are the purveyors of the narrative.
[00:31:37.640] - Jonathan Wharton
Absolutely. And so I think a part of this is, yes, it would be great and ideal if the message would come organically through campaigns and the candidates, but we know that sometimes the way things get packaged, especially in the media, gets lost in translation. So I would say cut that off with a bend before that even happens and find a proactive approach so that we're ready to respond, we know how to confront. And quite frankly, though, it's always been a side of me that says we need to have, like, a team of people as well out there to work with the media and spin it our way. But that's just my grand plan. That could even be possible, because we got to be the ones to do it to the media directly. We love to blame the Democrats for everything. I don't blame you, but a lot of this is the media. Seriously all you don't even want to know? Yeah, I'm working for Hearst Media. I'll admit I'm a cog in that machinery. You don't even want to know the emails exchanges that go on. Seriously. Don't even start on CT News Junkie. I mean, I could print out all those emails and make Hillary Clinton blush, because it's just the bizarreest thing I've been involved in.
[00:32:35.650] - Jonathan Wharton
And so when you work within the cog, the leviathan, I guess people don't know Hobbes anymore. You know, it's scary. It's really scary. And I don't want to bash the media, but, boy, I could.
[00:32:51.270] - Jeff Weiss
Len? How do we push the issues and stand firm?
[00:32:54.750] - Len Suzio
Well, I'll tell you what. It's not that difficult. Notwithstanding the media's bias, which I totally agree is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Democratic Party, you have to be on the attack. You cannot be in the defensive. So when they ask you a question like the abortion, like I was just saying, if I were Stefanowski, I would have said, well, look it, he said he was pro choice. I'm pro choice. But when that 13 or 14 year old girl is about to have a surgical abortion in Connecticut, she can do without her parents even knowing about it, let alone giving permission. Oh, by the way, did you know that Rhode Island had proposed legislation to prevent Planned Parenthood from transporting kids minors across state lines to have their abortions in Connecticut because Massachusetts and Rhode Island have parental notification, parental consent laws, the parents have to give their permission. So that's what you do. You take every issue that they raise, you anticipate what's going to be, and you flip it around. You give a quick answer to the question, ignore it, and you flip it around to them. You put them on the defensive. And that's why I just was disappointed with Bob, and I don't mean it, again, I was the first public official to come out and support him back five years ago.
[00:34:02.760] - Len Suzio
But he didn't learn the lesson, and neither did Tom Foley. You have to be on the attack. That means you learn the tricks, the little tricks of the game that are essential to winning in politics. Never be on the defensive. Get off it as fast as you can and go attack, attack, attack. And you can do it on virtually any and every issue. You just got to think it through. You got to anticipate what's going to be asked and then flip around to write on them. You can put reporters on the defense.
[00:34:27.640] - Jonathan Wharton
Let me jump in on that, if you don't mind. Forgive me, Jeff, for this.
[00:34:30.060] - Len Suzio
Let's go for it.
[00:34:30.650] - Jonathan Wharton
I'm ready.
[00:34:31.750] - Len Suzio
Here's the intellectual giant.
[00:34:33.210] - Jonathan Wharton
No, not even. I just teach for a living. Let me just say this. You already know this. Not everybody in this room knows this. It changed directions mid course with this election, with Bob Stefanowski, right. And it was difficult to follow where things were going. And even when he ran four years ago, again, we already knew the campaign staff was not from Connecticut, right. So it was changing in different directions. You know this. So I'm not giving excuse to the reason, but it's the reality of what happened this year was the campaign staff changed, directions changed, messaging changed. I couldn't keep track. Who could? So I think that's been part of the thing, is when this happens mid level like that, right in the middle of it.
[00:35:11.590] - Len Suzio
He was hitting on parental notification in the month of May, and then he dropped the issue. And it was after that switch.
[00:35:19.040] - Jonathan Wharton
But then, remember, Liz left, obviously, in August, and he had the whole shift going on the campaign right after that, during the summer.
[00:35:27.610] - Mark Mnich
There wasn't any mention of the Parental Bill of Rights after that. I thought it was going to be on there. I was expecting to see but, to Len, here's how you turn around that question for Bob and you tell that reporter to go ask Ned Lamont why a child needs permission from their parents to get an aspirin in school, but not an abortion? Right? That's how you turn that question around.
[00:35:44.270] - Len Suzio
See, I would have told them I had a hearing when I was in the Senate, when I was co chair of the the Children's Committee, so I said, okay, I'm going to have some legislation regarding parental notification. Now, here's what happened in the Republican caucus. I said to my fellow Republicans, I'm co chair of the committee, I want to have this bill and I want to have a hearing on it. Oh, you should see the reaction. It was like, oh my gosh, no, you're going to jeopardize the election. We're going to lose his election. Wait till after the election. When we win the majority, we'll bring it up. Even majority of my fellow republicans who I some of them were definitely pro life. They didn't support it. They were scared to death of the public implications of it. Basically, again, you've got to be on the attack, attack, attack. You can't be in the defense and you can't even sound defensive when they ask you a question.
[00:36:32.600] - Len Suzio
If you're too stupid to think in advance, you know what the issues are going to be in advance. You ought to know. You're running for public office and you don't know what the issues are going to be, you shouldn't be running for a public office and you ought to be prepared to get attacked. That comes with the territory. Oh man I could tell you, I could talk for the rest of the night about my experiences up there and what was done. Some of them are funny and some of them are not so funny, but go ahead. I know Jeff, you got a limited time here.
[00:36:58.950] - Jeff Weiss
Okay, well, we're doing good here. I just got a few questions that were emailed into me. People asked online. What do people want to hear? This one we can keep pretty brief here. No, just cuz I've got an idea what the answer is, but I just want to hear from you because you guys have been in the trenches. Did fraud or irregularities have any material impact on Connecticut elections?
[00:37:25.960] - Jonathan Wharton
I think any election's prone to that. It's just a matter of what the numbers are, where the data comes from. So it's going to happen. The problem is that we all know it tends to be a fraction of a percent, and we have no clue until we see what happens after the election. So I think it's this, it's there. We just don't quite know until way after the election. So it's prone to happen if they're given it in any election. You just won't know the numbers until later on.
[00:37:49.190] - Jeff Weiss
Len?
[00:37:51.910] - Len Suzio
I think fraud happens in every election. The extent of it is difficult to prove. We got someone in this room, Linda Szynkowicz, who's got an organization devoted to uncovering and exposing fraud. There's no, doubt in my mind, though a significant amount of irregular activities, or if not illegal activities like voter harvesting definitely occurred. This is aided and abetted by the early voting law, which makes it easier for people to go out and collect these votes and drop them in the dropboxes. And I don't know if any of you saw 2000 Mules. Wow. Okay. That doesn't necessarily prove unequivocally that the election was changed. But it sure does set the table and begs for an investigation, a full scale investigation. If half the country feels the election was stolen, then you've got a serious problem. And I do believe, I definitely think that Mark Zuckerberg puts a half a billion dollars or 450 million into these dropboxes and then he gives all this money to these non government entities, these NGOs, and they go out and they, in the 2000 Mules, he shows they traced the phone, the phones around because they could do it with tracking mechanism and they identified thousands of people who were going to the NGOs and going back and forth to these dropboxes with the votes.
[00:39:09.930] - Len Suzio
Thousands and thousands and thousands in Pennsylvania, Arizona, et cetera, in Georgia. So, okay, the case isn't proven, but darn, you know what I want the country to believe, and I'm the president of the United States, and I would be all for an investigation to show that it wasn't stolen and debunk this stuff. But it's all like as soon as you mention any doubt or skepticism at all, you're immediately attacked as being an election denier. Hogwash, I say it's legitimate to ask that question. What the heck? The Democrats objected to Trump Russiagate, right? That was not a problem. They were election deniers for four years and they even got investigations going, et cetera, impeachment, et cetera. I don't know. You got me going. See that. Go ahead.
[00:39:53.790] - Jeff Weiss
Alright, Len. Thank you.
[00:39:54.610] - Len Suzio
Lesley, what do you think? As it pertains to Connecticut?
[00:39:57.030] - Lesley DeNardis
So there are always irregularities, and irregularities could be something as simple as a machine breaking down at a polling location. So there's always going to be some of those kinds of things that happen on election day. Do things rise to the level of fraud? I haven't heard any accounts from this past election. That remains to be seen. But the early voting, I think that was an unfortunate decision on the part of the electorate to approve of that ballot measure. I think lengthening the process is not, I don't think, it's a wise decision. I think that we have had plenty of ballot access and I don't think that's the issue. I think it hasn't improved voter turnout, but I do think it's an invitation for more irregularities and for possible fraud in the future. And I think we really need to be on the lookout for that.
[00:40:56.610] - Jeff Weiss
Yeah, real quick.
[00:40:57.600] - Paul Crisci
Just brief We're all doing is every election. There's no one knows for sure. We've not seen the ballot. Here's what's happening that we can control. My election, 2018, there was a lawsuit that we need with the Independent Party to move into Guilford. My opponent turns around and she has three lines: the Independent Party, the Green Party, or the Working Family, and Democrat. How did she get there? Well, guess what I find out. There's a letter that goes out and says, due to our concerns about monkeypox local elections, will not have a caucus. Christine Cohen is valuable to them, or so it seems. But statewide, we're going to allow you to have a caucus because clearly they don't get monkeypox. But here's the kicker. How did that happen? Her treasurer was the attorney, the bylaws writer, and the board member for the Independent Party. We have to start looking and peeling the onion back more because those are the important ones. And, listen, I don't blame that on my election. But that was a potential 1000 votes and the working class family was a potential thousand votes because that's what happened in the last two elections. I'm down 2000 to nothing before the day starts. That's where we have to start looking and figuring out how to bring those back to the middle again. Because we're never, ever, ever going to be able to prove a broken machine or somebody in a dark alley. But you can control the things that are unscrupulous actions, things that are not accurate, things that are those are the things we have to look at. I'm sorry, I need to hijack it.
[00:42:41.810] - Jeff Weiss
So, unscrupulous action, not necessarily illegal.
[00:42:45.040] - Paul Crisci
There's other things we could do to get those things back. Get that out right now we're not.
[00:42:55.750] - Jeff Weiss
All right, thank you.
[00:42:56.960] - Mark Mnich
One thing we can do about the machine is you can actually count the ballots that are collected to match it up against the count that comes out of that machine at the end of the night.
[00:43:03.260] - Jeff Weiss
That's actually part of the process, Mark. That's actually part of the process we do here. Okay. Another question came on off the Internet here. Was the Republican Party unity an issue in this election? Just this kind of quick?
[00:43:23.180] - Jeff Weiss
Go ahead, Jonathon.
[00:43:23.840] - Jonathan Wharton
Thank God, no. Compared to what it was back in 2018, oh, my God, that was a disaster. I mean, anybody could remember the fact that we had this great opportunity because Malloy decided not to run again. My former mayor of Stamford, don't even ask me about that. And, you know, I thought, boy, this is our time. And Ben Proto and I spoke about this years ago, you know, when, when he ran the first time for Party Chair. And the hope was even early on that there could be a real possibility in 2018. But there were so many candidates, by the way, not just on the one side. We know that we had, what, 18? 20? I couldn't keep track, but even the Democrats had double digit for a while. All right? And even they had a couple of candidates that come out of, obviously, the convention, including, well, a certain mayor out of Bridgeport. So, in truth, it was a very competitive race. It was a very divided race. And you know what the saddest thing was? We divided ourselves as a result of it. I'm not even talking about voters, I'm talking about resources. I'm talking about campaign managers and people and staff members.
[00:44:29.590] - Jonathan Wharton
We divide each other up, and I hated it. You know, Chuck Pyne and I we were been talking about this, remember, we were in the Valley dealing with this, and, you know, with Kurt Miller, it was just, I hated it. This time around, yes, we were a little bit more united than we were, thank God. I was hoping for that. I'll give credit to Ben Peroto for this. Thank goodness for that, because I could not deal with the division within the State Party and even what's going on locally. My only hope is, can we keep this glue together for the municipal races and then possibly four years down the road? I don't know, but this certainly was better than it was the last time around.
[00:45:12.530] - Jeff Weiss
Len, what do you think? What are your thoughts?
[00:45:14.430] - Len Suzio
I'll be very terse. It was not, as far as I'm concerned, the issue at all. I don't think it affected the election at all. Maybe in some local campaign, there might have been, like, in Meriden Lou Arata was seeking the nomination for was it the 92nd district? I felt with the House district? 83rd. Okay. And it was another Republican that wanted it, and we convinced him to go for the Senate seat, which had been the seat I had. And so we avoided that battle, and as far as I know, everybody worked together. I don't think unity was the reason why we lost what when we lost at all.
[00:45:45.790] - Jeff Weiss
Lesley, what do you think?
[00:45:46.900] - Lesley DeNardis
Oh, I didn't see a lot of disunity. I think people certainly kind of absorbed the lesson. I always think of Ronald Reagan admonition, thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans. And so I didn't see a lot of that going on, any at all. I think as far as unity in the sense were we running in a unified way? There was some effort to have congressional candidates from the five districts make some joint appearances, and I think that was helpful. I just think from from my vantage point, the sheer number of offices up for election, up and down the ballot, made it difficult for a congressional race to gain traction. Only because you had so many candidates from state constitutional officers, state senators, state representatives, and then you have a congressional candidate all sort of going after the same resources, the same pool of money, the same donors. And so as much as people want to be unified, there's just so many resources to go around. So that made it, I found, a little bit tricky. You can only go to the well so many times. But despite that, I still think that there was still a lot of camaraderie and good cheer among the candidates that I would encounter on the trail.
[00:47:03.270] - Jonathan Wharton
Jeff, can I turn it around a little bit? Sure. Especially on your side dealing with Congress. What about this whole dynamic, how the media kind of spun it, this whole debate about surrounding Leora vs Themis, and that divided up the whole, this time around for the Senate race. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:47:19.310] - Lesley DeNardis
During the primary? Yeah, I think that got a little bit contentious. Absolutely. And there was some mutual sniping on both sides and who is going to be the better candidate. But I think once that process was done, I think people did quickly rally around the nominee.
[00:47:43.010] - Jeff Weiss
Okay. All right. Let's see one other question from online. Is Connecticut an inherently Democrat state? Are we destined to always be blue?
[00:47:58.810] - Len Suzio
Who's that directed?
[00:48:00.650] - Jeff Weiss
Why don't you take it first? You've got experience. You lived it.
[00:48:05.740] - Len Suzio
Well, if you look at the party registration, of course it's two to one. It's like 800,000 to 400,000 or something like that. And then there's a million unaffiliated voters. So you'd have to say, well, if it's not a Democratic state, it's got a plurality that's overwhelmingly Democrat. The silver lining in the clouds is I know a lot of the Democrats who had told me they're totally sick of their party. It's gone too crazy, too far left. Some of them actually started to change their party affiliation. And so look at elections are won before they even begin. You should be doing something now to prepare for the elections in two years or the municipal elections next year, that kind of thing. That means you've got to get involved in getting a party infrastructure, campaign infrastructure in place for candidates run by campaign managers that know how to win. The problem here in Connecticut is there's too few candidates who have won, and the candidates who have won are in heavily Republican districts, so it's not that much of a challenge. You really need somebody. Joe Markley and Tom Scott have put together, they were going to try to campaign to train campaign managers on how to win a race.
[00:49:17.420] - Len Suzio
That's how I first won. I ran several times and got annihilated, and then Tom Scott said, I'm going to show you how to run a real race. And that was the first time I ran, I should say. And he did things that I never saw before or heard of before. And he's a real resource. He's a tough person to deal with. Those who know him personally, he can be pretty much.. Okay. But Tom is, he knows, in my opinion, he's the smartest political mind in Connecticut. And the very fact that he was, I would not have won, never even come close to winning in an overwhelmingly Democratic district. And the fact that I could win in a district that's almost three to one Democrat to Republican, including Wesleyan University, I mean, all due respect to the college crowd, I mean, forget it. There's no way I'm going to get even close to majority there.
[00:50:05.840] - Jonathan Wharton
I don't teach at the mini Ivy? So you don't even worry about that.
[00:50:11.250] - Len Suzio
I just think that, yes, it's not as Democrat or as blue as you would think, and when you look at most of these elections until this one, this gubernatorial campaign, I mean, if you're winning by 2% or less and you have all the advantages that the Democratic Party has in the state, shame on you. It's unbelievable that they they should absolutely be annihilating the Republican opponent. So the problem is, okay, where do you pick up that couple of percent? And the encouragement to me and to all of you should be it's in striking distance. It's there. It's possible. So it's reason for hope. And so I kind of combined we inherently never where we go from here. Oh, and by the way, recruit the Hispanic population. Do not be indifferent to them. Get them involved in Republican politics. I was told by one voter who is Hispanic, he said, I'm registered as a Democrat. I can't vote for you. And I said, no, you can vote for me. He said, oh, I thought the law was, if I'm Democrat, I have to vote as a Democrat. I mean, can you believe that? So we got to make certain because they're the fastest growing population in the country, and they again have a lot of values that align with the core Republican values, too.
[00:51:17.930] - Len Suzio
So that's it. If any of you want to hear some funny stories, I'll stick around and tell you some really funny stories later on.
[00:51:24.730] - Jeff Weiss
Lesley.
[00:51:25.430] - Lesley DeNardis
No, I definitely agree with your point about Hispanic voters. And in the third Congressional District, we didn't have a lot of time, but we were starting to make some inroads. There are certainly lots of neighborhoods in New Haven, Fair Haven, and those voters are, I think, they're natural Republicans. They may just not know it yet, but we've got to tell them that. So the values align. But I think you don't know it. Connecticut is not inherently a Democrat state. I can't believe that. Otherwise, that's just too self defeating. But in all honesty, with the unaffiliated voters, it's sort of the Holy Grail of the unaffiliated voter. They're always there. We always are trying to chase after them. We're never quite sure if they're going to swing our way or not, but in fact, they are there. I think every race there are different dynamics that plays in a midterm election as a presidential year. So it's sensitive to those factors. But I do think that, yes, we have to look at building our bench a lot more, and we have to look at building our resources, particularly for the congressional seats, because there aren't a lot of those seasoned veterans who have run congressional races. For those of us who are looking for that kind of help, we need resources. We need some assistance in that way.
[00:52:44.210] - Jeff Weiss
Definitely. And, what do you think, Jonathan?
[00:52:46.850] - Jonathan Wharton
I'm constantly telling my students there we're not this navy blue state that the media, especially the media, loves to say. I constantly say we're a violet state. You like that, Michele? There you go. You can take that back to West Haven. You guys have enough drama over there. I know state reps sleeping with state reps, but it's politics. I know. For $5,000. Sure. So the thing is, of course, I definitely digressed, but I will say that I constantly tell my students look there are pockets of pink and red. And if you know these maps, it's not navy blue. Except in your New Haven and Hartford. You already know what happened.
[00:53:31.830] - Jonathan Wharton
Even when they are, they don't turn up. They don't turn up. These cities, you should see it. Maybe they get 25%. That's a big deal. I know. You know, you're working in New Haven City Hall. 25% is a big deal. You all you know what it is compared to Hartford and Bridgeport, where they're lucky to break 15%. Okay, so that's really problematic. So, yeah, it looks that way, but it's not. It's a matter of how do you pick that up? And I would also add that these pockets and I love this. Chuck and I were talking about the Valley. I love Naugatuck Valley. I secretly got the biggest crush. Don't go back to the Valley saying this, but they know my love for it because guess what? These unaffiliated voters. But those are Democrats who are Republicans.
[00:54:18.770] - Lesley DeNardis
Blue Dog Democrats.
[00:54:18.770] - Jonathan Wharton
Blue Dog. Exactly. And it's amazing how they are. So the thing is that, by the way, I'm on the front line because Southern has got a lot of students on the Valley, they are this way. Even if they're not registered Republicans per se, they lean Republican. And don't forget one thing I've said from the beginning, very much from the beginning, over and over again.
[00:54:39.080] - Jonathan Wharton
And even your party chairman said it tonight. At the local level, we have over 100 officials who are mayors or selectmen or women who are Republicans, too. That's a big deal. Don't ignore your local government as much as your media spinning it's this we're all blue. Not locally. Don't you buy that for a minute. Trust me, I'm confronting this all the time in Southern as a state and local government professor. I don't even teach the national government anymore. Thank God. Been fed up with Congress. No offense.
[00:55:12.050] - Lesley DeNardis
Me, too.
[00:55:12.050] - Jonathan Wharton
I know. Run again. And the thing is that the thing is that we need to reinforce and say, look at the state and local level, this is not the case. Great.
[00:55:23.500] - Jeff Weiss
I've got one very furtive question from the floor.
[00:55:28.970] - question
In all of this, we haven't looked at the question of why are there so many uncontested races?
[00:55:37.610] - Jonathan Wharton
Do you want to go for that?
[00:55:40.410] - Len Suzio
In most of the uncontested races, they're in districts where they're so extreme, either Republican or Democrat that the other party knows that there's no chance to win. So it's hard to recruit candidates to run what everyone believes is a losing race. Why waste your time and effort? And by the way, I'll say this. I was saying before. It's not just what you say, but how you say it. And one thing when you go to business school, like I was at the Wharton School, Bob Stefanowski went there, and Tom Foley, whatever, you're trained to be unemotional. You're trained to make decisions, getting the emotions out of the way. So you make rational, logical decisions. That works in business, but it doesn't work in politics. So if you're giving this message about crime is a real problem, and there's all these guys running, murdering and raping, you got to say it with passion and feeling in it. And that was part of Bob Stefanowski's problem. He was so monotonic. So what you need to do is nominate more Italians to run for office.
[00:56:55.330] - Jeff Weiss
I thinking you're saying this in the right place.
[00:56:55.330] - Jeff Weiss
Okay, I want to send this off with a very high note here. So I've got a final question for you guys, and Jonathan I'll let you start with this one.
[00:57:05.590] - Jeff Weiss
Where do we go from here? What can we do better? What can we do differently in general, in the future? What's going to be the ticket to success?
[00:57:13.420] - Jonathan Wharton
What Ben Proto said at the beginning, I've been waiting to hear. Now you got me interested maybe going for State Central again. Because we need these reforms. He said this at the beginning tonight. We need these reforms. Convention, not convention, changing around, partnering. Look, I know you guys are here to get rid of Democrats. I am, too. Trust me. I'm four generations Republican. And my father, God bless him, still remains with the Democrats. But that's another story. So the truth is that in Connecticut, you have to work with the other party to get these reforms done. And the fact you're making inroads with Nancy, kudos because that's the way it's designed. So any reforms and changes which are desperately needed is overdue. Now, I don't want to push the open primary business, because I know you and I've had our conversation on that. Here come the tomatoes and the eggs.
[00:58:02.330] - Ben Proto
I didn't say open, I said direct.
[00:58:02.330] - Jonathan Wharton
I know, I'm just saying, in terms of another reform initiative for the future, because we need to find a pathway to get more people to be affiliated with the party. And that's difficult. I get it. And by the way, you think it's bad, like, amongst us? Deal with Generation Z.
[00:58:17.140] - Jonathan Wharton
I'm on the front lines right now. Okay? Forget the fact that they're not affiliated with any political party. I'm like, Look, I don't care which party pick, the crazy party or the evil party. I have no problem being Darth Vader. Right? But you pick a party so you can participate in a primary. We have a closed primary for a reason. You need to participate. So we need to at least allow for party affiliation to forge. But among younger voters, it's not happening. And we have a lot more people coming from out of the state, leaving out of their states, coming to Connecticut, and we're not building that up. We need to find a pathway around that. So I would say get more of these reforms through Ben I'm rooting for you because, you know, I've been on your case about it for years, even before you ran for chair. Keep it going. We need these reforms. It's way overdue. We need to build this out and do a better job. Not just in terms of messaging, but just recruiting people to stay in the party.
[00:59:13.390] - Jeff Weiss
Excellent. Okay, Len, what are your thoughts?
[00:59:16.670] - Len Suzio
I would first of all, look at where there has been success in states that are not locked Republican, but like Florida. Florida was overwhelmingly, it was 400,000 extra Democrats registered eight or nine years ago. Now it's reversing like 700,000 more Republicans than Democrats. So you copy, you imitate success, you learn from success and where it's been, where it's worked. And granted, Ron DeSantis had the advantage of being governor for the last four years, but still, John Rowland was governor here for like eleven or twelve years, and the party never enjoyed much success except for at the gubernatorial level. So that's one thing I would do. The other thing is I would look and I would say campaigns, as I said, are won long before they even start. And one way is you got to have campaign managers that know how to run a winning campaign in a competitive district. So I would take Joe Markley, who I love. Joe Markley is just a sweetheart. He's another intellectual, by the way, and he's got this wonderful self effacing humor. And match him with Tom Scott, who's just diametrically opposite. Tom is like, he likes to say he's George Patton in politics or whatever, but they know how to run winning campaigns.
[01:00:37.070] - Len Suzio
So you don't have to love somebody, you don't have to like them to get them involved in your campaign. Just recognize that. Again, I'm telling you right now, my elections are proof positive that it can be done even in overwhelmingly Democratic districts. But you got to have people that know what to do and how to do it. And I was clueless until Tom and Joe Markley got involved in my campaigns. And then I saw what it's like the first time and we did unbelievably sophisticated things that we don't have time to go into tonight, but it got down, right down to specific voters we targeted and everything else. We knew exactly who we were going after and how to get ahold of them, et cetera. So start doing that now, start doing it now. And then if you get another business person run for governor who's self funded or whatever, make certain they understand that this is not business as usual, this is a totally different ball game. And if they're not prepared to invest themselves intellectually and emotionally in the campaign and take strong stances, unequivocal and aggressive stances, then they're not going to win.
[01:01:46.210] - Len Suzio
What's the sense of wasting their time and money? Basically, we've learned that, I think, in the last twelve years with the millions of dollars been spent by Republicans who are self funded. So I just say again, Bob's training was like mine in Wharton School. It's like you get the emotions out. You just focus on what the issues are. But you got to inject emotions. That's what somebody said. The heart, not the mind, is what motivates voters. They show up. They're motivated by emotions. Intellectual arguments are great and fine, but it's the emotions. Some crime, blood and guts, money, taxes, the price of gas: these are all hot button issues that can be framed in a very specific, concrete way to put the Democrats on the defensive. And that's what we failed to do, I think.
[01:02:35.570] - Jeff Weiss
And, Lesley.
[01:02:39.410] - Lesley DeNardis
I would say yes, absolutely. We need strategy. We need tactics. We need trained strategists. We need a robust organization, all those organizational principles. But we also need to adhere to our platform. I think we have an inherently superior platform to run on. I think the principles that we stand for, the convictions that we have about people making their own decisions, about self determination, about people using their God given freedom to pursue happiness, these are really, I think, the winning principles that people actually want. I think we actually have a winning platform if we would just actually articulate it more. And maybe we need a boot camp to be able to talk to voters about how these rather abstract principles, actually, they're actually better for them. I heard it said on the campaign trail, oh, but the Democrats, they do a lot of handouts. How do we compete with that? Well, I would say I would say inherently in people's true and human nature, they don't want that. I think if you got down to the fundamental basis of a human being and their dignity, their value, and their self worth, they would probably say, you know what?
[01:03:54.520] - Lesley DeNardis
We want self determination. We want to make our own decisions. We want to pursue our freedom in our own way. If we can start talking about that, I think we can put more hearts and minds in that. And I think people would gravitate to us more because the issues are going to vary. The issues of the day are always going to be they're going to vary. But what we have are enduring principles that I think are winning ones.
