Politics & Government
Voting in August is a primary concern
Michael Goldstein says many people aren't aware of August 13 primary; Faces Bob MacGuffie for GOP Fourth Congressional District nomination
By Scott Benjamin
NORWALK – Michael Goldstein and his son and campaign manager, Jonathan Goldstein, are wearing shorts with white T-shirts reading, “Put A Doctor In The House.”
They are handing out campaign literature for the August 13 Republican primary in the Fourth Congressional District to beach-goers sitting in lawn chairs and at picnic tables. The district encompasses a large share of southwestern Connecticut.
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Calf Pasture Beach is dotted with sand castles, swimmers, croquet, bocce, miniature golf and the sounds of an outdoor band concert. Sail boats are docked across the street.
It is late July – the point when parents are alarmed about the prices for the back-to-school clothes that recently arrived in the department stores and the kids know the stopwatch is ticking and in less than a month Alice Cooper will no longer be singing, “Schools out for summer.”
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Michael Goldstein, an eye doctor for more than 40 years, said, “I don’t think a lot of people even know that there is a primary.”
Goldstein, a member of Greenwich’s Representative Town Meeting, lost by eight delegate votes - 71-63 - on the second ballot at the Republican nominating convention in May and decided later that week to challenge the endorsed candidate, former financial executive Bob MacGuffie of Fairfield, in a primary.
The winner will face Democratic incumbent Jim Himes of Greenwich, who was initially elected in 2008. The Cook Political Report reports that the Fourth District, which the GOP captured in every election from 1968 through 2006, is now the most Democratic district in Connecticut. Himes has been re-elected in recent years with about 60 percent of the ballots.
August is the time to evaluate whether the Mets – owned by hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen of Greenwich – made the correct move in acquiring outfielder Jesse Winker just before the trade deadline. Politics is something to consider around the time of the wild-card round.
“I would agree that it is difficult to gets people’s attention,” Goldstein said in an interview with Patch.com.
“I would also say that this is not a very well publicized primary,” he added. “Last time [in 2022] there were three primaries and you had the U.S. Senate primary with [former state House Republican Leader] Themis Klarides and Leora Levy who were high-profile candidates.”
He said Dominic Rapini of Branford, who annexed the Republican nomination for Secretary of the State, and former Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson, who won a primary as the endorsed candidate over Goldstein in the Fourth District, also were high-profile candidates.
This year there is a U.S. Senate primary between Beacon Falls First Selectman Gerard Smith, the convention-endorsed candidate, and Matthew Corey of Manchester, who was the Republican nominee six years ago for the seat held by Democrat Chris Murphy of Hartford. However, to date, it has garnered only a fraction of the attention that the 2022 Republican U.S. Senate primary generated.
Goldstein, said he is still practicing medicine part-time, but is devoting at least parts of five days each week to canvassing neighborhoods and distributing campaign literature while chatting with voters at public events. He also has distributed several news releases and issue papers.
Entering the Dogs Days Of Summer, he talks to voters about early voting, which will be available form August 5 through August 11.
“There are some people who are going away,” Goldstein explained. “So we encourage them to do early voting or even absentee voting, because this a time of year when people take vacations.”
After receiving a campaign flier, Don Sheen of Norwalk tells Goldstein that his chief concerns are grocery prices and securing the border with Mexico.
Goldstein said voters in Bridgeport, the largest city in the state, are concerned about school choice and illegal immigration. He said that throughout the district voters comment on inflation, energy costs, health care costs and rising crime rates.
Sitting at a picnic table, Amanda Erickson of Norwalk said, “The Democrats have gone too far left. You look at the prices of groceries and the high interest rates. It is as though the Democrats have forgotten about the working class. Everything has gotten so expensive” under Democratic President Joe Biden.
Republican former President Doanld Trump, the 2024 GOP nominee, wants to impose tariffs of at least 10 percent on all imported foreign goods and 60 percent on those coming from China.
Would that help the American economy?
Commented Goldstein, “It depends on how you look at it. It raises the cost of imported goods, but at the same time it can discourage things like dumping” products into the United States.
He said that over the last 20 years China has gone from a country that was gradually becoming a more “Western-based society” to one that is on a quest to “become the dominant world power with parallels to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.”
On another topic, Goldstein said he is critical of the Biden Administration’s response to domestic riots against Israel.
“To tolerate antisemitic riots in this country and to not prosecute for hate crimes is totally inexcusable,” he commented.
The Fourth District includes Greenwich, which has some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, and Stamford, which is home to nine Fortune 1000 companies.
But Goldstein remarked that towns outside the Fairfield County Gold Coast also are thriving.
He said that in Shelton, Republican Mayor Mark Lauretti, who was initially elected in 1991, “has a whole row of shovels in his office for new development projects through the years.”
Bic, Igor Sikorsky, Pitney Bowes and Hubbell are among the companies with operations in the city.
Goldstein said he recently had breakfast with Republican First Selectman George Temple of Oxford, who has been instrumental in the retail and housing development along Quarry Walk in that town. Oxford has had one of the fastest growing populations in Connecticut over the last 20 years.
Temple recently was one of the municipal officials that endorsed Goldstein in the primary. The list also includes Levy, a former Republican National Committee member, and the Connecticut Federation of College Republicans.
As for the Republicans’ prospects for recapturing the White House, Goldstein said he believes that Trump is “stronger than he was in 2020” when he narrowly lost his bid for second term.
“There were a lot of things in the press that were extremely negative” about Trump four years ago, including the impeachment proceedings, he said.
Goldstein added, “I think this time there is more discontent with the Biden-Harris Administration.”
Resources:
Interview with Michael Goldstein, Patch.com, on Sunday, July 28, 2024.
Interviews during canvassing at Calf Pasture Beach, Patch.com, Sunday, July 28, 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelton,_Connecticut
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/connecticut-s-conservative-slice
https://dev475.com/meet-dominic/
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ogbl#inbox/FMfcgzQVxlTgPdHntKkGCSHjTJJDQTTp
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ogbl#inbox/FMfcgzQVxlTgPdHntKkGCSHjTJJDQTTp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Stamford,_Connecticut
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Trending-Where-the-wealth-is-concentrated-5312631.php
