Politics & Government
Trump II is better than Trump I
Republican Goldstein 'considering' fourth run for Congress in Fourth District
By Scott Benjamin
GREENWICH – Michael Goldstein pours bottled water into a plastic cup on a morning when it appears that the southwestern-most municipality in New England will report the highest temperature in the 48 contiguous states.
He is sitting at a table at the St. Lawrence Society on Valley Road, which even on a sweltering day is within running distance of the spacious house on Grove Lane where Republican former President George Herbert Walker Bush grew up.
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Out at Vista Drive, overlooking Long Island Sound, you figure the downstairs maid at the $31 million mansion that Republican President Donald Trump once owned has stacked cases of sun screen and Heineken near the outdoor pool.
This is where last summer Goldstein held his primary night watch party as he carried Greenwich by about 700 votes to secure the Republican nomination in the Fourth Congressional District.
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Once the Greenwich results were posted, his opponent, Bob MacGuffie of Fairfield - the convention-endorsed nominee - lamented, “There’s the ball game.”
Is the St. Lawrence Society a Republican haunt?
“There are a lot of Republicans that belong,” says Goldstein, an eye doctor and attorney. “But at the events that they have, Democrats come too.”
Apparently, they must have heard the anecdote about how there are attorneys who argue a case against each other for hours in court and when the proceedings end that day, they play golf together.
What letter grade would you give Trump for the last six months?
“I don’t know,” said Goldstein. “I don’t want to give him a letter grade. Overall, I think he’s doing a very good job. If I gave Biden an ‘F,’ I would give him an ‘A.’ Then again, that is a low bar.”
Is Trump better in his second term than in his previous term?
“He is,” commented Goldstein In an interview with Patch.com. “I think he learned from his mistakes. It takes time to run a country, and I think he had distractions in his first term – such as impeachment.”
Is he better than the other recent Republican presidents – George Herbert Walker Bush, George Walker Bush?
“He’s better than either of them,” Goldstein remarked, “Neither of them I would classify as superstars.”
In a phone interview with Patch.com, MacGuffie said, “40, 50 years from now even Trump’s critics will look back and see that Donald Trump was the pivot point for American politics in the last century.”
Around the 100-day mark, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel stated that Trump should follow the narrative that would “resonate best with voters” – tax cuts, deregulation and peace through strength.
Has he accomplished that?
Goldstein remarked, “Trump’s move against the Iranian nuclear program was a major positive step. He did something without starting a war.”
He added that he supports the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill that the president signed on July 4.
But the federal debt has grown from $9 trillion when Democratic former President Barack Obama took office 16 years ago to $37 trillion.
There hasn’t been a balanced federal budget in 24 years.
There has been consideration of establishing a commission to review each line item of the federal budget.
“Absolutely,” Goldstein exclaimed. “This business of continually raising the deficit becomes unacceptable.”
Jessica Simms of The Greenwich Time reported last November that Democrat Kamala Harris took 57.3 of the presidential votes in Greenwich. It was the third consecutive presidential election in which the Democratic nominee prevailed.
Fred Camillo, a Republican, is the first selectman in Greenwich. Andy Blye of The Greenwich Time has reported that the town has not elected a Democrat to that position since 2001, and he served only one term.
State Sen. Ryan Fazio of the 36th District grew up in Greenwich and is now considered a rising star who may enter the race for the 2026 GOP gubernatorial nomination.
However, Greenwich is where prominent Democrats in Connecticut live – Ned Lamont, the governor; Richard Blumenthal, the senior U.S. senator; and Jim Himes, the U.S. Rep. from the Fourth District, who easily defeated Goldstein last November to win a ninth term in a district that only elected Republicans in the 40 years before Himes won his first race.
About four years ago Greenwich reached the point where it has more registered Democrats than Republicans.
Is this due to the Diploma Divide?
“Diploma Divide?” Goldstein asks.
The folks who can recite every letter in the Greek Alphabet and wrote their senior research thesis on the Adventures of Gumby and Pokey tend to vote Democrat.
“I think there is a dichotomy among the educated,” remarked Goldstein.
He said that Ruy Teixeira: co-author of “Where Have All The Democrats Gone,” has said that, “A certain percentage of the very educated people are progressive and others more conservative.”
There also are a lot of Democrats in neighboring Stamford. If you consider municipalities that directly border each other, the largest tandem in Connecticut is Stamford, which is second in population, and Greenwich, which ranks ninth. Combined, those two municipalities – which are part of the upper crust of the state - have about 200,000 of Connecticut’s 3.675 million people.
Greenwich High School graduate Patrick Ruffini, the Republican pollster, wrote in The Wall Street Journal last November following Trump’s triumph that, “Racial and class realignment is here to stay, and the Republican future lies with the new hard-hat coalition.”
Are Republicans in Connecticut capturing more working-class voters?
“I think they are,” Goldstein commented.
Look at Bridgeport, the largest city in the district and in the state.
Goldstein explained, “The working poor take on second and third jobs. If they had education vouchers they could send their children to a parochial school. The Democrats support the teachers’ unions, who are against it because if impacts their membership.”
Greenwich and Stamford have been adding population in recent years even though they are among the most expensive places to live in Connecticut.
Goldstein said that is partly due to the increased traffic along Interstate-95.
“Mass transit is not as widely used than it was before the pandemic,” he said. “Roads are used more than before. It makes it very difficult from the farther-out towns.”
However, the Fourth Congressional District doesn’t start and stop in Greenwich and Stamford.
For example, there is scenic farm land in Redding and Easton, a vibrant retail center, Quarry Walk, in Oxford and impressive corporate centers in Shelton.
Goldstein ran and lost at the Republican convention in 2020, ran in a primary and lost in 2022 and captured the primary in 2024 before losing to Himes in the general election. Goldstein annexed 37.3 percent of the votes.
He has been regularly distributing news releases since last November’s election.
Is he going to make another bid in the 17-town district that Gary Rose at Sacred Heart University has written holds a “Maverick Tradition”?
“I’m considering it,” said Goldstein, who indicated he may establish an exploratory committee by this fall. During the last cycle he didn’t announce his candidacy until December, nine months after MacGuffie had entered the race.
Goldstein said that might not make a run if a “superstar” comes along.
Has Mel Kiper Jr. identified any high first round draft picks?
“Not that I’m aware of,” said Goldstein.
Remarked MacGuffie, “We need a young person in the district to take on Himes. I don’t know of any that are stepping up right now.”
Himes is 59. Both Goldstein and MacGuffie are in their 70s. Daniel Miressi of Norwalk, a millennial, also was in the race at the GOP convention last year, dropping out at the convention after the first ballot.
Regarding making another big for the congressional seat, Goldstein commented, “You need a minimum amount of money to mount a successful campaign.”
How much? Is it more than what a recent college graduate needs to buy a flat in downtown Stamford within walking distance of the New York Comedy Club?
“You need $500,000 to $1 million to run a credible campaign,” Goldstein remarked.
“You need a massive amount of money to mount a successful campaign,” he said.
“It is a major obstacle for Republicans in this district,” Goldstein asserted. “You need to have personal contact with voters You need to have people knocking on doors. Volunteers are not sufficient for that. You need to hire people to get the message out.”
“The biggest problem is that most voters really are kind of apathetic,” he remarked. “They focus more on their personal lives and are unaware of the things going on in political campaigns. They focus more on their families, their children, paying their bills. Politics really takes a back seat.”
Connecticut has not had a Republican congressman since Himes defeated 11-term incumbent Chris Shays of Bridgeport in 2008.
Is the Connecticut Republican State Central Committee taking steps to boost the party’s candidates for federal office?
“I don’t think so,” said Goldstein. “It hasn’t changed a lot. They’ve kind of given up on the federal elections. That is not a priority.”
Goldstein campaigned last year as an outsider, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Put A Doctor In The House.”
Before he served as governor of Florida and was elected to the U.S. Senate from the Sunshine state, Rick Scott was a venture capitalist and lived in Greenwich.
Goldstein said he briefly met Scott years ago at events in town.
“He left Greenwich to go to Florida because of the taxes,” said Goldstein.
Scott recently told Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel on a podcast that, “In politics it seems like people focus on things after they become a problem.”
Goldstein, a member of the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting, said he agreed.
“A lot of stuff is post-crisis,” he complained. “Health care is an example. Anytime a new crisis happens a new set of regulations come in and they’re never subject to cost-benefit analysis. They wind up making health care costs more expensive.”
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D-Middletown) recently said that the state could experience a reduction of more than $10 billion from the federal government in Medicaid funding over the next 10 years.
Goldstein, who served two terms as president of the New York County Medical Society, said that the projected annual reduction of $1 billion for Medicaid claims is about 2.5 percent of the heath care costs in Connecticut.
He said that David Kreschevsky of The Hartford Business Journal has reported that the increase in health care costs in the state is growing at eight percent a year.
“The larger problem with Medicaid is the provider tax,” Goldstein remarked. The providers are taxed at six percent.
Additionally, Goldstein said over-regulation has led to fewer private practitioners.
“The entire middle class is struggling with health insurance,” said Goldstein. “They are struggling with high premiums. They have high deductibles, which is a deterrent to people getting health care.”
Goldstein said Connecticut faces a crisis because it needs to lower its state taxes and increase its energy supply through natural gas and nuclear power to reduce electricity costs.
He said during a recent business meeting to Las Vegas, he looked beyond “The Entertainment Capitol Of The World” and mostly saw “ugly barren desert in Nevada. But the state is booming. ‘Connecticut is a beautiful state, but it is not booming.”
Forty-six years ago, Democratic former President Jimmy Carter took the ‘E’ out of HEW – Health Education Welfare -and put the ‘E’ into a separate cabinet agency – the federal Department of Education.
Trump is taking steps to abolish it.
Goldstein commented, “It apparently is an inefficient economy.”
“It would be better to return the money that would have gone to the Department of Education to the states and let the states spend it,” he said.
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently said on PBS that an Australian think tank had reported that 20 years ago the United States was the leader in 60 out of 64 technology categories. Now China has the lead in 57 of those 64 categories.
Said Goldstein, “China has been very good at stealing technology.”
Is it time to scrap having Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and adopt a Most Favored Nation status arrangement that is renewable each year based on China’s performance on human rights?
“I don’t think they’re going to change,” Goldstein remarked.
“China is a problem,” he declared. “A very subversive country. It is a dictatorship. They have essentially slave labor. They’re looking to become a global power. China is potentially a dominant country. In history anytime that a totalitarian dictatorship has been the dominant country in the world, the world has been an awful place.”
Resources:
Interview with Michael Goldstein, Patch.com, on Tuesday, July 29,2025.
E-mail interview with Michael Goldstein, Patch.com, on Thursday, July 31, 2025.
Phone interview with Bob MacGuffie, Patch.com, on Friday, August 1, 2025.
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/a...
https://patch.com/connecticut/...
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/macguffies-quest-join-freedom-caucus-falls-short
