Former marketing executive seeking Republican gubernatorial nod

Brookfield CT

09 March, 2022

10:47 AM

Description

Susan Patricelli Regan Ned Lamont Bob Stefanowski Oz Griebel David Walker Al Terzi Barbara Franklin By Scott Benjamin GRANBY – As a television interviewer, Susan Patricelli Regan has a wheelbarrow of endorsements that rival those for the Batman box office smash. For example, Al Terzi, who must be in the Guinness Book of Records for most hours on Connecticut television: "Susan is a most engaging and effective interviewer. You can always count on learning things you never knew about her guests … she makes them real!" Barbara Franklin, who was the U.S. Commerce Secretary for Republican President George H.W. Bush:" Susan Regan is a superb interviewer. She does her homework and asks pertinent questions in such a charming way that the person being interviewed wants to give a fulsome answer. And that is how she brings out the best in everyone she interviews and conveys that 'proof' to her audience. I very much enjoyed talking with Susan." "I probably have a better overview of anyone in the state with the exception of Dennis House or Tom Dudchik," Patricelli Regan said, making refence to, respectively, the WTNH-New Haven Channel 8 hosts of "This Week In Connecticut" and the "Capitol Report. " "I've been doing the same thing," she explained in an interview with Patch.com. CT Valley Views – the cable show that she hosts and her husband, Bill Regan, produces, has garnered two national public access television awards and has seven broadcast partners. Over the last 11 years, she has interviewed almost everybody in Connecticut that has an exclamation point next to their name, including Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) four years ago. Now she wants his job. Since February of last year, she has been running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, and as of late February had appeared before 18 GOP town committees. Like Lamont and financial executive Bob Stefanowski of Madison, the favorite to win the Republican nomination this year, she has business experience – having done marketing for a Fortune 500 company. She also is the founder and president of two charitable foundations. Interestingly, she is attracting the youngsters, who reportedly are more likely than their parents to register unaffiliated. Patricelli Regan said that the 16- to 18-year-olds tell her, "Your message is resonating with us. We support you. What can we do?" But the Republican Party appears to be coalescing behind Stefanowski. GOP consultant Chris Lancia of Milford told Patch.com in a phone interview that Stefanowski is the prohibitive favorite to win the convention nomination in May. Five years ago today Stefanowski was a registered Democrat, and then a year later he appeared before a limited number of Republican town committees, ran television commercials starting in January, wasn't even nominated at the convention but won a five-way primary in August with 29 percent of the vote. The Hartford Courant has reported that he was largely unavailable to reporters during the general election, which Lamont won by about 44,000 votes. Lancia said the dynamics have changed. Stefanowski has embraced the Republican apparatus, appeared at no tolls rallies, raised money to provide face masks for needy people during the pandemic and now regularly answers questions from reporters. Since formally announcing his candidacy in January it is as though Stefanowski is performing with a 30-piece orchestra that just added temple blocks to the percussion section. The Hartford Courant has reported that Stefanowski has already launched a $1 million advertising blitz. He has said that he will commit $10 million of his own money to the campaign. Lamont spent about $15 million of his money in 2018. And you can throw a bowel of confetti in any direction at a Republican Town Committee meeting in the 169 municipalities and be sure to hit somebody who has had their picture taken with Stefanowski. Patricelli Regan remarked, "They talk about Bob. They talk about Bob. They talk about Bob." And when a state or local party leader fails to note that she also is in the race, "' They say, 'Sorry. I did not mean to misspeak.'" Said Patricelli Regan, "They want Bob, because Bob is going to go along with what the GOP wants." What about debates? The state Republican Party held five of them before the state convention during the election cycle four years ago when it was an open seat and there was a baseball-roster of GOP hopefuls. Patricelli Regan said, "I've been thinking of asking Bob Stefanowski if he would like to have a debate so that the people can compare us. Republican State Party Chairman Ben Proto was unavailable for comment. Patricelli Regan said it would be better to have a direct primary system. "If everything rests on you being supported by the delegates it is not the people's choice," she exclaimed. "I think it should be by the people all the way along." Lancia said the debates should be scheduled between the convention and a primary, if there is one. As far as getting on the ballot through petition signatures if she doesn't annex at least 15 percent of the delegates at the state convention, Patricelli Regan said, "I'm not sure if I would have enough time" to accomplish that before the deadline. She indicated that two of her role models are David Walker and Oz Griebel. Patricelli Regan called Walker, the former U.S. Comptroller General and a deficit hawk, "the best" candidate that has recently sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination. He failed to qualify for the primary in 2018. She described Griebel, who died in 2020, "a true patriot of Connecticut" who "would have made a great governor." Griebel, a former bank president who headed the Metro Harford Alliance, sought the GOP gubernatorial nod in 2010 and ran as an independent candidate in 2018, taking about four percent of the ballots. Regarding issues: On the economy, with inflation at its highest peak in 40 years, state Senate Republicans want to temporarily trim the 6.35 percent sales tax to 5.99 percent. "I don't think it is enough," said Patricelli Regan. Manchester Journal Inquirer columnist Chris Powell stated recently that despite the current budget surpluses and flush rainy-day fund, Connecticut state government is "technically insolvent" as a result of long-term obligations for the state employee pensions and health care benefits CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf recently said in a web cast that long term the state faces $95 billion in unfunded obligations, which have been refinanced three times in the last five years. In 2019, he told a League of Women Voters forum in Wilton that they are largely due to the state employee pensions being structurally under-funded each year from 1939 through 2010. Said Patricelli Regan, "The unfunded pension liabilities is a commitment by a prior Democratic administration (Gov. Malloy) and I don't believe that having a Republican Governor who fully reneges on promises made (although not their Rep.'s party's pledge) will not win any votes from the unions who embody a majority segment of CT registered voters." She added, "Negotiation with perhaps smaller payouts over a longer period of time or lump sum payouts (at an estimated % of lifetime payments) may be consideration If you sign a credit card and don't pay the balance due on time, you will only incur further LTC and litigation costs. There needs to be integrity in the way a governor respects the other side's stance." CT Mirror has reported that former Republican gubernatorial candidate David Stemerman of Greenwich met vehement opposition from the leaders of the collective bargaining units when he proposed a similar plan four years ago. Patricelli Regan insisted that from her business experience she would be a better negotiator with interest groups than Stefanowski. "I don't think that Bob is good at the negotiation thing," she exclaimed. However, Stefanowski has written two books on mergers and negotiations and in 2018 Patch.com reported that former state Sen. Jamie McLaughlin, a former Woodbury resident who now lives Darien, said that Stefanowski had the best financial acumen of any gubernatorial candidate he had seen in Connecticut. Patricelli Regan said she opposes having the municipalities pay for part of the public school teacher pensions, which have been finance entirely by the state government since 1939. Both Malloy and Lamont have made that suggestion. "I think they already have enough on their plate," she said of the fiscal pressures in the municipalities. On another topic, Patricelli Regan said she agrees with Sacred Heart University Government Department Chairman Gary Rose, who wrote a book on the 2018 Connecticut gubernatorial campaign, that the future of Connecticut's economic viability is very dependent on the Pentagon budget to three major defense contractors – Igor Sikorsky in Stratford, Francis Pratt & Amos Whitney in East Hartford and Electric Boat in Groton. "Any Pentagon reduction in spending on those entities will have a deleterious effect on our state's economic future," she remarked. Patricelli Regan said that she agrees with Griebel, who told Patch.com in 2019 that since Raytheon, which has become parent company for Pratt & Whitney, owns the Collins Aerospace operations in North Carolina and Florida, it is likely that future expansion will come there rather than in East Hartford or Middletown. She exclaimed, "Taxes [in Connecticut] are too high, businesses face constant walls of bureaucracy, mandates, minimum wage issues, etc," she said regarding the obstacles that the defense contractors face in expanding in Connecticut. On crime, Republican legislators have proposed reforms that would make it easier to try repeat juvenile offenders in adult court. Patricelli Regan said, "The juvenile crime [increase] is definitely because there is nobody home." Regarding the judicial system, she added, "Most of these judges are liberals or Democrats and they're going to give a pass on some of the things that juvenile defenders do. They're stealing so they will have money for drugs." Resources: https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-where-is-bob-20181010-story.html https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-stefanowski-governor-second-attempt-20220123-sysvbiq2srajxl34ys5kexklwq-story.html https://ctsenaterepublicans.com/2022/01/ct-senate-republicans-call-for-sales-tax-reduction/ https://ctmirror.org/2022/01/20/2022-legislative-session-preview-session-2/ https://ctmirror.org/2018/04/03/attacking-state-pensions-stemerman-tries-break-gop-pack/ https://patch.com/connecticut/... https://ctmirror.org/2021/10/14/senate-republicans-release-anti-crime-proposals-democrats-are-unconvinced/ https://patch.com/connecticut/...