Greenberg Reflects On Congressional Races

Mark Greenberg On His 2014 Congressional Campaign

By Scott Benjamin

Former Republican challenger Mark Greenberg says the biggest factor in his seven point loss to U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-5) in 2014 was the blizzard of television commercials that caused some senior citizens to believe that he wanted to cancel their Social Security benefits.

Greenberg, a Litchfield real estate developer, said, “They did the polling, and thought they knew where my vulnerable spots were. It moves the needle. It impacts the some of the 10 or 15 percent the can be swayed.”

Esty, a former state representative and Town Council member from Cheshire, won a second term in the sprawling, 41-municipality district 53 to 46 percent over Greenberg, a real estate developer. It was the fifth consecutive Democratic victory in the district, which encompasses much of northwest Connecticut and was largely reconstructed before the 2002 election after the state lost one of its then-six U.S. House seats.

“I dropped as significantly as I did because of lies in the broadcast media [advertising] about my position on Social Security,” Greenberg said. “I had some seniors hang up on me [while I was seeking their vote] because I was the bad person who was going to take away their Social Security.”

He said a Hartford Courant Claim Check gave Esty’s commercial a “False” rating under a headline, “Elizabeth Esty Misleads On Social Security.”

Laura Maloney, Mrs. Esty’s campaign spokeswoman, defended the commercial in October in CTMirror, saying, “Mark Greenberg called Social Security a failure and wants to privatize it.”

Former U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson’s (R-5) husband, Dr. Ted Johnson, said in a 2002 interview that over the previous 20 years Democrats had tried to criticize his wife’s position on Social Security, noting that Mrs. Johnson’s campaign was able to raise enough funding in 1982, her first race, to overcome charges made by then state Sen. Bill Curry, her Democratic opponent.

“The Democrats have been banging that drum every two years for the last 20 year.” Dr. Johnson said.

CT Mirror reported that Greenberg in 2012 was critical of the current pay as you go system for Social Security.

Greenberg said in the interview that during the 2014 campaign after reviewing the issue he supported not only an increase in the retirement age, but also raising the income threshold for paying Social Security taxes beyond the current $117,000 cap.

During his 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama called for it to be raised to $250,000.

CT Mirror has reported that federal economists expect that Social Security benefits will exceed revenues starting in 2021.

“The system we have now is going to collapse,” Greenberg said in the interview eight weeks after the election. “You can’t put your head in the sand.”

Greenberg, who owns a number of commercial properties in Connecticut, said another big factor was the Democrats voter registration edge.

“In my district you have to make up a 20,000 voter deficit based on typical voter participation,” he added.

Some analysis of the campaign has been critical of Greenberg, who reportedly spent about $4 million of his own money in his 2010, 2012, when he lost in the GOP primary, and 2014 races combined, for not using more of his wealth after he captured the nomination.

He said he thought that both he and Esty would each have about $3.5 million at their disposal during the campaign. He said that by using his own money and campaign contributions he raised $2 million and had expected that the national Republicans and political action committees would provide another $1.5 million.

Greenberg acknowledged that he underestimated Esty’s fund-raising prowess since combined between her own campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s political group, she had $4.5 million.

He said he “was never” going to spend three and a half million dollars,” to win a congressional seat.

“It was against my principles,” Greenberg said. “It wasn’t worth it to me to get into this at all costs. I just don’t know if it would have made a difference anyway. I don’t think that just throwing money at it will get that 10 percent of the voters that haven’t made up their minds.”

He said former two-time Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon of Greenwich, a political neophyte, made an error in her 2010 and 2012 campaigns by spending needlessly. She reportedly spent about $50 million of her own money in each race.

“I think Linda McMahon reached her threshold and she could have spent $150 million more of her money and not won,” Greenberg added. “I was saying two years ago and four years ago that she was burning $40 million in each campaign. She needed a certain amount of money for name recognition and getting her message out, and then it becomes like the Bell Curve where at a certain point you reach the top and you don’t go any further.”

He said self-funding candidates are at a disadvantage.

“People who are voting tend to have some degree of jealousy about a wealthy person,” added Greenberg, who entered politics, in part, in response to the suffering that some of his real estate clients suffered during the 2008 financial crisis.

He said it can become a double-edge sword.

“If you’re wealthy, you’re going to be attacked by your opponent for your wealth because they know that will resonate with a number of voters,” Greenberg said. “And if you have money, then people question why you are asking for their money for campaign contributions.”h

Regarding his current bid for Republican state party chairman, he said the GOP in Connecticut should actively promote some of their current office-holders.

Greenberg said, “There was no better candidate than Andrew Roraback,” who was noted for his integrity and conscientiousness during an 18-year career in the General Assembly.

Roraback of Goshen defeated Greenberg and two other candidates in the 2012 Republican primary in the Fifth Congressional District before losing to Esty by about 8,000 votes in the General Election.

“We can’t rely on the Linda McMahons, Tom Foleys and Mark Greenbergs, because it is not working, at least not in this state,” said Greenberg, who is seeking the GOP state chairmanship for the term that will begin next June. Political consultant J.R. Romano, who worked for Republican state treasurer candidate Tim Herbst last fall, and state Sen Joe Markley of Southington also are seeking the post now held by Jerry Lariola Jr., who is expected to not seek another four-year term.

Foley, a wealthy businessman and former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, was the Republican nominee for governor in 2010 and 2014, losing narrowly both times to Democrat Dannel Malloy, who was the mayor of Stamford for 14 years.

“There is a very small bench,” Greenberg added, noting that the he party hasn’t had any congressmen since 2008 when Chris Shays of Bridgeport lost after serving more than 21 years in the Fourth District, which consists of lower Fairfield County and some surrounding municipalities.

The Republicans did gain 10 seats in the state House and one in the state Senate last November.

“We need a better minor league team with more people who already have a base of operations,” Greenberg said. “I built my base of operations over three campaigns.”

Some observers believe that Greenberg didn’t properly utilize that base.

A post-election analysis in CTNewsJunkie stated that he didn’t hire a press secretary, which is usually a requisite position in a competitive congressional race, and instead had Bill Evans, his campaign manager, handle two ambitious roles.

“I’ve been told that I should have,” Greenberg said regarding the hiring of a full-time spokesman. “I don’t think it would have made a difference.”

Greenberg , who was an early proponent of the Tea Party movement, said there was some “media bias” in the coverage of his 2014 campaign but “it wasn’t a terrible bias.”

However, he said about eight out of 10 times that Evans, his campaign manager, contacted a media outlet about an error or omission it was promptly corrected.

“I don’t think the media bias was fatal to my campaign,” Greenberg added.

Some observers have said that Greenberg under-utilized the social media, which, for example, reportedly helped Barack Obama in his two presidential campaigns.

“The consultants say that is a complete waste of time at this point,” Greenberg said of social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook and the use of extensive Internet advertising.

“I recognize that it’s not helping me to be the best recognized candidate in Groton [as a result of television advertising],” he said referring to the southeastern Connecticut town in the Second Congressional District. “But it’s very hard in the last two or three months of your race to say you’re wrong to the consultants and I’m going to spend my money this way.”

However, Greenberg noted that 15 percent of a candidates’ “media buy goes to fees for the consultants, who thus have a vested interest in “making each race as expensive as possible.

“A lot of this is run by political consultants,” he said. “It’s a business.”

“With the media buy you really are talking about 10 percent of the voting population that hasn’t decided who they’re going to support and how you can move the needle with that group,” he said.

On another topic, Greenberg, who has a wife and five children, said that “the personal sacrifice to run for office is staggering.”

“I spent night after night at Republican Town Committee meetings, chicken dinners or banquets,” he added. “Now, I’m just getting used to having as much free time on my hands as I do.”

“However, I have a lot of friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise,” Greenberg said.

In his bid for state party chairman, he said that over the coming months he will speak with Republicans about changing the mechanisms in how they nominate candidates and the need to get more votes in the major cities. Democrats currently control the governorship, all of the other state constitutional offices, the two U.S. Senate, five U.S. House seats and both chambers of the General Assembly.

Greenberg has said since 2010 that far too much time is spent talking to Republican town committees before the nominating conventions in May and too little time is allocated for the primaries, which are held in August He said candidates also should have more time to prepare the general election, which comes about three months after the primary.

He said the party should consider having a direct primary in May or June to allow ample time to campaign for the general election or a “strong convention” in which it is difficult for the runner-ups to force a primary.

Greenberg said the GOP also should consider Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton’s proposal to allow unaffiliated voters into the primaries. Statewide about 42 percent of the voters are unaffiliated, compared with 36 percent as Democrats, 21 percent as Republicans and 1 percent being affiliated with minor parties.

Connecticut Republicans briefly allowed unaffiliated voters into their primaries about 30 years ago when then-U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker’s allies were running the state GOP operation.

“It would bring the party to the middle,” Greenberg said, who indicated that most Republican Town Committees are more conservative than the GOP electorate.

“Even in a Republican primary, a small amount of people determine the nominee, because a lot of those voters are Republican town committee members, their relatives, friends and neighbors,” he said.

Over the recent years, the Republicans have struggled to get even a decent share of the vote in the three major cities – Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford.

“We can’t lose Hartford in a statewide race 89 to 11,” Greenberg said. “If we could take 25 percent of the vote in those cities we could win everything.”

“We have to talk to these people in the cities,” he added. “We have to let them show that we haven’t forgot about them.”

However, that concern has been expressed by some prominent Republicans in since 2010 when the gubernatorial ticket of Foley and Boughton captured 128 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities, 72 percent, but lost the election by 6,400 votes.

Boughton said during a talk in February 2013 at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury that polls indicate that most Hispanic voters in the cities, for example, list education and the economy as their top issues.

“They want the same things that everybody else wants,” he has said.

Regarding the economy, Greenberg said he believes that Connecticut will continue to lag behind the rest of the country as it expands

“Outside of Connecticut it’s going to grow at a big clip,” Greenberg said. He said an unfriendly business climate and Gov. Malloy’s efforts to spend staggering sums of money to keep existing companies in the state will stymie economic activity.

“Very rarely do I get an inquiry from a business that wants to start a new operation in Connecticut,” Greenberg said regarding his commercial real estate company. “Connecticut has a heartbeat, but it doesn’t have a vibrancy.”

However, he said consumers everywhere will benefit from lower gasoline prices.

“They’re going to stay low because of the increased supply,” Greenberg said. “$2.50 per gallon is going to be a thing of the future, not the past. People will have more money to spend on other items.”

On a separate subject, he said in contrast to some other areas, real estate developers are seldom revered in the Nutmeg State.

“Connecticut’s a tough place,” Greenberg said. “A lot of people in Connecticut like it the way it is. They like the revolutionary look, such as the Green in Litchfield. They want to have slow and careful development.”

“The land-use commissions are very hesitant to approve developments,” he added. “For instance, if we were in Texas, my Stop & Shop project in Litchfield would have been under construction two months after I proposed it instead of going through a slow process. Things are different in this state.”