Justin Clark Edging Into Contest for Republican Chairman.
West Hartford Republican Justin Clark tells Daily Ructions that he is “likely” to make a bid for Republican state chairman. Clark, a 34 year old lawyer, managed Tom Foley’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign within an ace of scoring an upset of front running Democrat and Working Families nominee Dannel Malloy.
Clark contacted Daily Ructions on a this spring Friday afternoon of Republican hopes and disappointments in the land of insiderdom. He is “making the rounds with state central folks and making calls.”
Clark has been assisting Foley in establishing the Connecticut Policy Institute in Manchester. Clark serves as a member of the Judicial Review Council, a position he would have to give up if elected to lead the state’s frayed Republican organization.
Coming off lsat year’s Foley campaign, Clark would be well-positioned to contrast himself as a more contemporary figure than William Aniskovich, who suffered a surprising defeat for re-election to his state senate seat in 2004.
12 comments
So this guy choked up the governors race and now he wants to run the party? No thanks.
Justin Clark is a man of action, integrity and great intelligence. Remember, Tom Foley only lost by 6,500 votes or so and only then because of the cheating that went on in Bridgeport. Tom Foley also won 76% of the towns in the state of CT. Justin has a vision and the capacity to accomplish his vision. I FULLY support him and will do what I can to help him to achieve his goal and turn this state around…
Is this the same Justin Clark who has led the West Hartford Republicans to such stunning success?
Tom Foley Cronies Are Not The Answer.
Connectict needs fresh leadership, Justin Clark will just be a Foley puppet.
[…] Justin Clark Edging Into Contest for Republican Chairman. — Daily … […]
Tom Foley lost because he had the wrong running mate. Was Justin Clark part of the decision not to endorse a running mate in the primary? That decision cost Foley the election. That was a terrible strategic error.
Mark, how did Clark “choke up” the governor’s race? Did you expect Clark, of all people, to stop the union ballot-stuffing in New Haven and Bridgeport by himself? Clark should be elected not because he’s a “Foley crony” (and as far as “cronies” are concerned, there aren’t many better people you could have in your closest circles than Tom Foley, who won 3/4 of Connecticut’s towns and is a renowned national GOP fundraiser) but because he knows what needs to be done and he’ll do it. Unlike Healy, he won’t be concerned with firing off invective and getting his name and face in the media. Rather, he’ll focus on recruiting good candidates and getting out there to fight Democrats on the issues. When your party chair is a sideshow, as the Republicans’ chair is now, that detracts from your message, and that’s been Healy’s biggest problem as party chair. He’s spent too much time being Healy instead of recruiting good candidates and training a qualified staff.
Clark has already recruited and managed a statewide team that brought Tom Foley — a first-time candidate! — to within a hair of the Governor’s Mansion. That type of teamwork and leadership is precisely what Republicans need.
The last thing that Connecticut needs is another state chairman who is the lapdog of one candidate or another. There are few good choices, but Clark clearly is NOT one of them.
First things first. The next state chairman needs to be focused on 2012, not 2014.
The conversation above is slightly interesting but everyone seems to be ignoring the 800 pound elephant in the room. This “race” is less open than the election of members to the politburo in the old Soviet Union.
The following is a post of mine from another entry about the CTGOP Chair election
The discussion of the election of a GOP State Chairman should highlight, if not mention, the fact of just how extremely closed and cloistered the process is.
A review of the GOP State Party Rules states that only the 72 voting members of the State Central Committee are allowed to select the next Chairman.
The voting members of the State Central Committee are comprised of two representatives from each of the 36 State Senate districts who are picked in a convention by delegates selected by local members of the Town Committees whose membership is dictated in practice by a few local insiders in each town.
As you can see, what starts as a closed process resistant to change at the Town Committee level feeds the selection of delegates likely possessing the same aversion to change who then select the members of State Central, which then vote to elect the Party Chair.
The sad reality of the current process is that a candidate who is a well connected insider (i.e. part of the problem) has a huge advantage over a candidate with new ideas and better solutions to the obvious problems we face.
Unfortunately, what the successful candidate for State Chair says to the media and the state’s Republicans in public is not nearly as important to what he/she says in person to at least 37 ultimate insiders on the State Central Committee who are, as the process stands, hardly truly representative of the state’s millions of Republican voters.
Yet another example of why we keep losing.
Tom Foley lost because he is boring. Nobody in CT. is going to vote for a rich white guy who can’t put a coherent sentence together. Foley is the problem, not the solution.
Tom Foley is trying to better his chances for a future run by promoting Justin Clark and subtly trashing Healy. Smart voters see through that type of self serving posturing and positioning. Tom Foley lost big-time, and he will continuously lose again when he tries. He should just run for Mayor of Greenwich, elected by an enclave of his wealthy peers. He would be real good at that.
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