Profile Of U.S. Senate Candidate August Wolf

By Scott Benjamin

He graduated from Princeton, heaved the shot put in the Olympics, trades bonds on Wall Street and speaks fluent German.

The resume is impressive, but the task is tall, even for a muscular, 6-foot, 6-inch figure who nearly took a medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

August “Augie” Wolf, 53, is seeking the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat that the Democrats have held since Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather to the last two Republican presidents, vacated it more than 52 years ago.

In fact, the Connecticut GOP has not won a U.S. Senate race since Lowell Weicker of Essex captured a third term in 1982 for the seat now held by Democrat Chris Murphy of Cheshire.

The current occupant of the seat up for election in 2016, Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Greenwich, spent a record 20 years as state attorney general, where he became recognized as a consumer advocate and generated volumes of media attention.

“That’s all he lives for,” Wolf said in a May 15, 2015 interview. “He thinks that by appearing at every garage sale, his approval ratings are going to go up.”

Blumenthal, according to CT Mirror, co-sponsored more legislation than all but one senator during the combined sessions of 2013 and 2014.

In March, a Quinnipiac poll reported that he had a 64 percent approval, 26 percent disapproval rating, equaling his best numbers since going to Washington.

A news release from the Connecticut Democrats in response to Wolf’s recent entry into the race noted that as attorney general, Blumenthal stood up to Big Tobacco companies and protected consumers from predatory businesses and since becoming a senator has fought for military veterans.

There seems to be scant residue from the 2010 New York Times story reporting that Blumenthal had misrepresented his military service in public speeches through the years, even indicating what might have been interpreted as having served in Vietnam.

He immediately apologized and said he had misspoke a limited number of times. Some of the national media wrote that he probably would have to depart the race.

The crisis subsided and he scored a 55.16 to 43.22 percent win over WWE chief executive officer Linda McMahon of Greenwich, who spent $50 million of her own money.

Wolf said he doesn’t believe his campaign will devote much attention to Blumenthal’s past misstatements since they had little impact during the 2010 race.

“It surprises me that it hasn’t resonated more,” he said. “Brian Williams of NBC News isn’t working now, and he did less than what Blumenthal did. Blumenthal was the attorney general when he made those statements and now he is a U.S. senator.”

Wolf said his campaign will largely focus on how his knowledge of corporate America would help boost a slow economic recovery.

“I get so many phone calls from people that want to find a job for their son or daughter who just graduated from an Ivy League school,” he added. “That wasn’t happening 10 years ago.”

Wolf, who lives in Stamford, says he’s four-square behind free-enterprise and that the banking regulations that were co-authored by former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-East Haddam), Blumenthal’s predecessor, were an overreaction that has stifled investment.

During his 2010 campaign, Blumenthal criticized some of the big banks for being overleveraged as much as 40 to 1, and endorsed Dodd’s legislation, which placed restrictions on the banks following the 2008 financial crisis.

“If you believe that government regulation and bureaucratic interference leads to good outcomes, I would challenge you to show me so,” Wolf declared.

“You’re just becoming a clerk because of the compliance requirements,” he explained. “No one is provided to take any risk in the financial world, because of all of the regulation. [Massachusetts U.S. Sen.] Elizabeth Warren has told everyone that everyone that works on Wall Street is a criminal. I don’t agree with that.”

He said the Federal Reserve Board’s policies of zero interest rates at a time when relatively few people can get loans, has widened the gulf between the upper class and the middle classes, since fewer people can make investments to garner better yields on their money.

“You’re creating more distortion in our economy,” he said.

Wolf endorses lowering individual and corporate taxes and ratifying the fast-track trade negotiating authority which reportedly is needed to pass the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between the United States, Japan and 10 other countries, which collectively represent 40 percent of the global economy.

Obama has had far more support from Republicans than Democrats on fast track and TPP. The president has said that if America doesn’t establish trade standards in the Pacific Rim then China, which has the world’s second largest economy, will do so.

“I believe that comparative advantage in trade is real,” Wolf said, who supports the TPP.

The Connecticut Democrats recent news release asked where Wolf stands on issues impacting the middle class, including the minimum wage.

Connecticut’s minimum wage is $9.15 an hour, compared to the federal standard of $7.25 per hour. The state was the first to approve boosting it to $10.10, which is scheduled for 2017.

Seattle, where Microsoft drives the economy, has a $15 minimum wage.

“I don’t think that’s the right solution,” Wolf said of Seattle’s standard, noting “that business owners say that when they’re forced to increase prices “consumers complain.”

“I think there is a middle ground somewhere,” he added. “I don’t know where that is.”

Wolf’s path to the Olympics began when he switched from baseball to track & field at the St. Paul Academy in Minnesota at the urging of his athletic director, who thought he had a future in the shot put and discus.

He said he had immediate success and the athletic director had Jeff Landers, a local college weight-thrower, provide pointers a couple of times a week. The new techniques not only provided him not only with the ability to qualify for the state meet but was the basis for him making it to the Olympics.

“Performance is all about having the right support and inspiration, and practicing the right movements over and over,” Wolf said. “The secret to success is boring: excellence is mundane. We need to do this better in our society—too much focus on instant gratification and superficial success metrics.”

That’s difficult since the human mind is not conditioned to do activities for long periods of time.

At Los Angeles, Wolf, who was probably the biggest U.S. Olympian, marched during the opening ceremonies next to the smallest, the talkative Mary Lou Retton, the Gold Medal gymnast who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The Games ended on a sadder note as he returned to the Olympic Village and saw a sign that stated, “All medalists be ready for the bus to airport for the White House visit tomorrow 6 a.m.”

He had missed a bronze medal and a chance to meet Ronald Reagan by just four centimeters.

For generations, Connecticut has only elected senators who had served in the U.S. House or was a state constitutional officer.

Wolf, who has not held elected office, said he sees himself the mold of freshmen Republican U.S. senators David Perdue of Georgia and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, former business executives who bring valuable practical experience to Capitol Hill.

After the Olympics, he trained in Germany, learned to speak the language and was impressed by how the country educates its students and trains its athletes through public-private partnerships.

Wolf said the German schools have “real vocational training systems” in which the schools and companies enter into a five-year program.

“I don’t agree with President Obama that everyone should go to college,” he said. “There is a dearth in skilled labor in some industries in this country.”

He wants to establish competitive sports clubs through public-private partnerships, saying it not only would produce future Olympians, but “you will change a lot of lives.”

Wolf, who is in the “tail end of a divorce,” has three children in college and another at Greenwich High School (GHS).

The roster consists of A.J., who is on the football team at Duke, Alex, who plays basketball at Dartmouth, and his twin, Andrew, who attends the University of Connecticut, and Abbie, who is an accomplished basketball player at GHS.

Now that the kids are almost grown and Wall Street is only a shell of what it was, Wolf decided to utilize some of the lessons that he learned as an undergraduate in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and run for elected office.

“The hand of government has gotten too big,” he said. “I think the whole [financial services regulation] thing is a disaster now. I think the whole thing needs to be revamped.”