Where everybody knows your name

NORWALK – Sitting at a corner table at Silver Star Diner – where they serve terrific two-egg sandwiches - Daniel Miressi says, “People know you here and they’re brutally honest.”

The challenger for the Republican nomination in the Fourth Congressional District says he debates issues with a member of the Norwalk Democratic Town Committee and they can end the conversation with a friendly laugh.

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He knows the African-American families that stop by after Sunday morning church services, the businessmen from Westport and the regulars who applaud when Ben Rice clubs a screamer into the bleacher economy seats as they watch ESPN's Sports Center.

“Hey, Liz,” he says to one of the waitresses. “Isn’t this campaign headquarters?”

It is where he kicked off his second bid for the seat in the 17-municipality district, which stretches from Greenwich to Oxford. It is where he will hold his watch party Tuesday night, August 11, as results are announced in the GOP primary.

Early voting commences on Monday, August 3.

Miressi is competing against Michael Goldstein of Greenwich, the convention-endorsed candidate who won the primary two years ago but lost by a large margin in the general election to U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4) of Greenwich. Miressi ran and withdrew after the first ballot at the nominating convention.

Stamford, the second largest city in Connecticut, and Greenwich, which ranks ninth in population in the Nutmeg state, apparently are the prime battlegrounds.

Miressi said he believes that since Goldstein lives in Greenwich and serves on the Representative Town Meeting, he will probably run up a plurality that will make Yordan Alvarez’s OPS seem meager.

However, The City That Works is “a different animal.” It has a large contingent of residents from the Millennial and Gen Z groups and the stage at the Palace Theater hosts such talents as Joe Jackson.

As of late June he had raised $8,000, which might be enough for a round-trip flight on Show and Go Airlines to Bluebeard’s Castle in St. Thomas. To win a congressional seat you usually need enough money to buy one of the office towers along Washington Boulevard in Stamford.

Miressi, who was born in 1989, says the members of the Millennial and Generation Z groups are shelling out $2,800 a month for a studio apartment and can’t repay their student loans. If you have children, $250,000 is not a big paycheck in Fairfield County.

“It is not just inflation. It is all-encompassing,” he laments.

“The younger residents left college with a watered-down degree and inflated prices,” Miressi declared.

He said many small businesses – the soul of the economy – were shuttered during the pandemic.

“In Connecticut it is as though you are on a subscription service,” complains Miressi, who was the GOP candidate in 2022 in the 25^th state Senate District.

He played ice hockey at Framingham State and has coached in the area for years.

Miressi said it is time to follow The Geek – former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes – and enact a flat tax.

“I think it would generate more revenue,” he boasts “You would eliminate a lot of the loopholes.”

Wouldn’t that harm the riff raff who are clipping coupons?

Miressi remarked, “There should be a minimum threshold so that the people below the poverty line don’t have to pay a flat tax.”

Goldstein stated that he opposes a flat tax.

“We need a simpler, modern federal tax system that closes loopholes, eliminates waste, fraud, and abuse, and treats working families and small businesses fairly,” he wrote in an e-mail message.

“The current code is too complex and outdated,” Goldstein insisted. “Reform should ensure corporations invest, create jobs, and pay their fair share, while also rooting out inefficiencies and misuse of taxpayer dollars across federal programs”

Republican President Donald Trump is banging the gavel to get the Federal Reserve Board to lower interest rates.

Miressi insists it hurts the working class.

“By keeping interest rates low, it is inflation on the American people,” he explained. “It basically is corporate welfare because they [the business leaders]want low interest rates.”

In their recent book, “Messy Jobs,” economists Luis Graciano, Jim Li and Yanhui Wu contend that with the advent of artificial intelligence, some jobs will disappear, other will be reshaped and “many of the most valuable forms of human work will endure.”

Miressi said, “We are on the precipice of a new industrial revolution. It will not cause a fiscal bubble.”

“I think there is no way around it,” he said. “It will open up opportunities. We need to get in front of the future and embrace it.

He said the Republicans need to be “more steadfast in becoming an America-first party.”

“Open trade was good for share-=holders,” Miressi explained. “ It was good for government. There were cheaper supply chains. But what did it do for workers. It seems like it is the corporate class and then everybody else.”

On another topic, Miressi said he supports making daylight-savings time permanent, a measure that recently was approved in the U.S. House.

“I think having extra hours in the early evening with the sun out is a good thing for the Northeast,” he commented. “Some businesses are impacted during the winter months and it would provide more flexibility going toward six p.m.”

Who is the greatest athlete to come out of Norwalk – Calvin Murphy or Mo Vaughn?

“I have to go with Big Mo,” Miressi said.

He said he has been told that as a high-schooler Vaughn launched a homer that went into Spiderman territory and landed over the visitors stands at Monroe’s Masuk High School.

However, during Murphy’s era no one other than Rick Barry was a more accurate free-throw shooter. Murphy is in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield and Vaughn didn’t even come close to being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

However, Murphy only made one NBA All-star team and Vaughn was a three-time All-Star. Maybe more importantly, he was the 1995 American League Most Valuable Player.

Commented Miressi, “Mo was a special talent. He had great hand-eye coordination for hitting a baseball.”

Resources:

Interview with Daniel Miressi, Patch.com, on Tuesday, June 30, 2026.

Phone interview with Daniel Miressi, Patch.com, on Thursday, July 9, 2026.

Phone interview with Daniel Miressti, Patch.com, on Thursday, July 16, 2026.

E-mail interview with Michael Goldstein, Patch.com, on Thursday, July 16, 2026.

Luis Garicano, Jim Lu, Yanhui Wu, “Messy Jobs,” e-Book, 2026.