Susan Bysiewicz's Grassroots Campaign for the Senate

At the Haddam Town Office Building last Tuesday night, politician Susan Bysiewicz, former Connecticut Secretary of State, outlined the issues that drive her to run for a U.S. Senate seat. Bysiewicz is running for the one being vacated by Joe Lieberman. She also came to support the other Democratic candidates for office in Haddam, particularly current Selectman Peter Arsenault, Democratic candidate for First Selectman.

Against a background of teeming rain pattering outside, Bysiewicz calmly and confidently described how, “together, we can make Connecticut a better place,” in a fifteen-minute talk to a gathering of some fifty supporters. Haddam was one of many visits on her statewide grassroots campaign.

Bysiewicz, her signature long brown hair held back by a headband, wore a neat black pantsuit and radiated health and energy. Before her talk, she circulated the room, listening to that evening's attendees, serious at times, joking and laughing with some.

Running against her in the coming 2012 race for U.S. Senate, possibly, would be Republican Linda McMahon, a candidate nationally known as a former wrestling executive, whose self-made wealth created a costly losing campaigns in the history of the state when she ran for the Senate in 2010 against Blumenthal with a reported $50 million of her own money. Other possible contenders for the seat include Rob Simmons and Michael Fedele.

GOP competition aside, does Bysiewicz fear the fallout from President Obama and the Democratic Party’s current unpopularity (eclipsed only by the unpopularity of Congress with the people, rated at a whopping 83%)?

To hear Bysiewicz talk, she appears pretty much fearless in the face of the stormy political atmosphere. The attitude seems to be, “somebody’s gotta do it.” Clearly, her record as a public servant stands firm, showing Bysiewicz to be very clearly for and of the people.

“I’d like to make the state a place where young people can get jobs,” she started, making a joke about trying to get a special student discount for having two kids enrolled at Wesleyan University. Her youngest attends high school in Middletown. Bysiewicz, born and raised on a farm in Middletown, is the daughter of a Connecticut Law School professor and a WW II veteran who ran the family farm and operated a small business.

“I’m the daughter of a small business owner and the wife of a small business owner,” Bysiewicz mentioned. “I will be an advocate for small business and for infrastructure.”

She said she’d been very excited to hear about Obama’s public works program. Instead of starting new projects and hiring new workers, states took the money and filled in the cracks, so to speak. Bysiewicz is in favor of a “very extensive public development program. . . to invest in roads and bridges and mass transit.”

She would most certainly “be an advocate for high speed rail and getting back to the business of making things again” in our state.

Also on her agenda: “we very desperately need renewable energy – wind, solar, etc. – all things we should be incentivizing.”

Bysiewicz cited there were more G.I. deaths from suicide than on the battlefields due to PTSD. “Connecticut has over 200,000 veterans, and I’d like to ensure that the 20,000 young people get home and properly cared for.”

She continued, “we should bring our young people back from Iraq and Afghanistan so we can use the $2 billion every week to invest in our own country.”

According to a recent New York Times article, Bysiewicz mentioned that Connecticut is dead last in job creation in the nation, and currently has the highest percentage of 18 to 35 year-olds leaving for better opportunities.

A proud Connecticut Democrat who is running a statewide grassroots campaign to win this U.S. Senate seat for Connecticut, Bysiewicz’s top priority will remain to create and keep good-paying jobs in Connecticut by rebuilding infrastructure, investing in new industry and cutting taxes for the middle class and small businesses. 

Such formidable tasks lay ahead, it’s a wonder how Bysiewicz or any political leaders have the guts to try to make a positive change – but at least, they try. So when they start handing out the new jobs, please let us know – we may not be the younger demographic, but us 40+ folk need to be working, too.