Mike Clark Will Announce Congressional Bid on April 5th.
Farmington Republican Mike Clark will launch his bid for Congress in Connecticut’s open 5th congressional district seat on Tuesday, April 5th at 6 p.m. The event will take place at Apricots restaurant on the banks of the Farmington River.
The former FBI corruption buster will enter what’s expected to be a crowded field for both major party nominations.
29 comments
While I appreciate Mike’s service in the FBI, what we need in congress right now is people who know how to create jobs and make a payroll. Having a candidate who is collecting a government pension while working another job and has never run a business is not appealing to me nor do I think it will appeal to voters in 2012.
We need proven business leaders to turn the economy around. We do not need more people who depend on the government for their paycheck! My only gripe with Mike Clark is he is collecting a fat government pension while collecting a fat corporate paycheck. That makes me feel he is part of the problem.
So, HC, would Jefrey Immelt make a better political candidate than a man with an impeccable record of service to the public? By the way, if you think Clark is getting too big a pension, did something wrong to enhance it, or is trying to double dip, explain what your problem is his pension and why instead of tossing vague complaints intended to paint Clark with conduct you offer no evidence for.
HC – play your violin somewhere else.
I am a lifetime resident of Farmington — Clark has emerged as a real civic leader. His service, experience and integrity are exactly what our district needs.
I have to agree with Happy Conservative. We need proven business leaders to get us out of this mess the US is in. Being a small town politician is in no way as important as knowing how to run a business, create jobs and balance the books in a private sector business.
Career government workers typically have no business savvy. They have been taken care of with a steady paycheck during their careers. Then they are taken care of for life by us with huge pensions. I want someone who has been able to operate a big budget in the black. I’m tired of career government workers or career politicians messing up the country.
We have a couple of prominent business people to pick from. I will not vote for anyone else. If we want government workers we can just elect Donovan. For what his life has been up until he moved to Farmington Mike Clark may as well be a democrat. He doesn’t need another federal pension!
I have watched and been involved with Mike Clark for the past 20 years and he has done more for the community in Farmington than anyone I can think of. From athletics to project graduation to beautifying the town and keeping Farmington competitive, I have built a trust that Mike will do what is best and would trust him to represent my district.
Mike Clark voted year after year to approve 6-figure salaries for two Republican town officials who don’t work nearly that hard to deserve that pay. This will haunt him during the campaign when he’s arguing for leaner government and cuts.
Clark’s Checklist:
FBI Pension: Check
Private Sector Pension: Check
Advocating Budgett Increases Each Year in Office: Check (with two pensions, a few hundred $ on the tax bills no biggie!)
Congressional Pension and Healthcare for life: Still Missing
Bill – You are absolutely correct! That’s the government worker mentality! Tax and spend on salaries and pensions regardless of economy or revenue. He should run as a democrat! The last thing we need is another multi pension government worker sucking more out of an already bankrupt federal system! It’s not possible for him to win.
As for the rest of the candidates, Sam lost because he was so out spent. Frankly, any candidate who doesn’t have a large warchest of their own money is not going to win the race in the fifth. It looks like Mike and Justin are lining up as spoilers!
In this economy we need people with ties to business who can raise money and spend their own. I’m glad Mike is a nice guy but I want to know how he is going to raise the $2 million + necessary to win the primary and election. If Sam couldn’t do it with all of his connections what makes you think a small town politician with no statewide or party name recognition can???? Please, I wish these wannabes would stop wasting everyone’s time and dividing the party.
I swear he’s a plant by the democrats so he can take the primary and lose the election. I bet they will be contributing to him!
Another pretender to the throne. Honestly, who outisde of Farmington has ever heard of Mike Clark.
Justin disqualified himself by acting like a baby when he lost. Lisa is waaayyyy too liberal. Lisa should run in the Democrat primary – her past support of Obamacare should put her in good stead.
The only candidate who can win is Mark Greenberg. He has the right message and the resources to back it up. All Republicans need to get behind Mark sooner rather than later so he will be as strong as possible going into the fall.
Last time, Sam lost because he was outspent 3-to-1 that will not happen with Mark Greenberg. The fact that the party was not unified also did not help Sam. Let’s unify behind Mark now – that will give us the best chance to field our strongest possible candidate in the fall.
Foley, Bernier, and Clark have no shot. Greenberg will win the nomination – why not just get behind him now rather than handicap our nominee like we did last time.
There is a reason CT Republicans got wiped out despite a national wave. Have we learned nothing from last November? If we don’t learn any lessons, we won’t win this time either.
Let’s back Greenberg now.
“I have to agree with Happy Conservative. We need proven business leaders to get us out of this mess the US is in” — Joan G
I couldn’t agree with Joan G more. Does Mark Greenberg have a successful business track record? Mark Greenberg is self made. He didn’t inherit a dime. He earned his money through intelligence and hard work. He will bring those same attritubes to the fall campaign and to the House in 2013.
As for the “only a rich guy can win” theory, how’s Senator McMahon working out?
Oops!!!! Maybe we need to have a better campaign platform than a thick billfold.
Greenberg out-spent Caligiuri and Bernier combined in a Republican primary and lost: check.
Greenberg supposedly had the Tea Party and conservative base locked up—and lost: check.
Greenberg can’t blame his loss on this being a Dem state because only Republicans may vote in our primary—oh, and did I fail to mention he not only lost, but came in third—OUT OF THREE!
Hmmm, in the year of the outsider, the business person, and the Tea
Party, and after spending oodles of money, he couldn’t even win a primary.
I’ve never met Mike Clark, but here’s what I’ve learned:
Former FBI (we Republicans like people who get the bad guys, right?) who cleaned up corruption in our state: check.
Brought down former sleazy, corrupt, pedophile Waterbury mayor Phil Giordano and children everywhere are safer: check.
Works for UTC and therefore has private sector experience: check check. (Again, we like job creators in our Party, right? We attack Blumenthal and our anti-business state for slowly driving UTC away from us, right? So why is working for them a ba thing?)
Has LOCAL government experience, so he knows how government operates, and understands retail politics, but the best kind. I mean, if
Mark Greenberg is against the system, he should never go to a local incumbent’s fundraiser or announcement, nor should he even talk to RTC folks, because if he’s going to paint them all with the same brush, he shouldn’t support them OR ask for their support. So I’ll give another “check” to Clark for his local gov’t experience—and I think Greenberg should, too, unless he’s going to snub his nose at every single sitting Republican office-holder. And if he does that, well kudos to him.
CT conservative = Bill Evans
Marko,
Is that your real name? I hate to break it to you but you are wrong! I always post under my real name unlike many others. If you would like to offer to donate $1,000 to charity I would agree to let Kevin Rennie fill you in if it was me or not! If it is me, I will donate $10,000! Care to put your money up?
Bill Evans
What a radical idea for the Republicans to run a 3 term elected winner whose town has the lowest mill rate and a AAA bond rating, honored FBI Agent with integrity who fought corruption and has 7 years of business experience with Connecticut’s biggest company – HE WOULD PROBABLY WIN and wouldn’t that be an interesting change for the GOP!!!
Integrity + Fiscal Responsibility + Proven Ability to Win the Undeclared Voters = Mike Clark and a REPUBLICAN WIN IN 2012!
Interesting that you’re so flush with money now Bill, Greenberg must be paying you a lot to do his dirty work.
I am already sick of the idiots who are trying to twist Lisa Wilson-Foley’s words and position on Obamacare! Do any of you mindless Greenberg supporters realize how much profit Obamacare will take out of the healthcare industry?
Greenberg is like the nutty professor. He will never win a primary because those of us with long memories will not forgive him for the negative campaign he ran against Sam. He cost Sam the election so he could run this time. It isn’t going to work for him. He has a big mouth and is too negative.
All of you who are being the negative hacks for Greenberg are making sure the party will not unite behind him if he wins the primary. Looks like Donovan will be out next congressman!
Marko…..(T in reality)
Until you show you are not a coward by putting your real name to your posts or more importantly accepting my challenge for charity, people should take you for what you are…..a closet Foley supporter. So if anybody wants to know where the dirt is coming from under anonymous names, innuendo , or people ‘throwing up a little in their mouths’, it is there! I look forward to you putting a real name along with an acceptance of my challenge. You seemed so sure originally.
Bill Evans
(Again using my real name!)
Lol – getting pretty heated over a few blog posts that about 25 people read. Looks like I’ve hit a nerve William.
The real Bill Evans should offer to put up $100K if Rennie will release the URLs or email addresses of the posteres. If CT Conservative is actually Bill Evans, he should pay $100K to a charity.
Marko Ramius should have to pay $100 to Mark Greenberg’s Simon Foundation to rescue homeless dogs if CT Conservative is not Bill Evans. Let’s have Rennie release the email addresses/URLs to see who is correct on this one.
Will Ramius take this bet or admit he misspoke?
Joan G-
I was a Sam supporter in 2010 (Sam is a friend). Mark Greenberg did not cost Sam the election. You either engaging in revisionist history or are still in denial to claim otherwise.
Sam lost because he was outspent 3-to-1 by special interest and union money. If Mark Greenberg is the nominee, this will not be the case. Mark will not be outspent by MOveon.org, ACORN, and the SEIU (like Sam was). Mark will be able to spend his time resching out to voters because he won’t be as burdened with rigors of fundraising as a traditional candidate would be.
You are also engaging in revisionnist history about LWF and Obamacare.
Her position is akin to John Kerry’s. She was for it before she was against it (or was she against it before she was for it). It is difficult to follow her position on Obamacare because it changes so frequently.
I’m sure she currently says she is opposed to Obamacare because she wants to win a Republican primary, but once the primary is over, can we really rely on someone with shifting positions on the issue to go to Washington and be committed to fighting it? How can we trust her to fight it when her position is always shifting?
Mark Greenberg has been 100% consistent on Obamacare all along. As a businessman who has met a payroll, Mark Greenberg is well aware of the devastating effect Obamacare will have on businesses (particularly small businesses) and the disincentive it creates to hire.
If Lisa Wilson Foley understood this she never would have made favorable statements about Obamacare. This isn’t me slamming her or a negative attack, it is simply a recessitation of the facts – I’m sorry if they are uncomfortable for you.
It’s nice to know that the Foley folks are not team players. You are announcing ahead of time that you will not support Mark Greenberg when he wins the primary.
It seems like the strategy is to smear Mark Greenberg (and start an anonymous whispering campaign agsinst him) rather than debate him on the issues. I can understand why Team Foley doesn’t want to engage him on the issues since they probably don’t even know where their candidate stands on the issues on any given day.
It is sad the the politics of personal destruction are alive and well amongst Connecticut Republicans. How can we expect to win when one campaign (Foley) has already announced they are not team players and will not support the winner of the primary. Taking your toys are going home if you don’t get your way is not a winning electoral strategy.
I’ll support the winner of the primary but if the Greenberg forces think the way for some newbie from the City to win a CT election is to engage in serial attacks on the opposition, we may not have much of a nomination left.
Marko…..no nerve hit, just no room for cowards in politics. You won’t post your name or take the offer to help charity so people can take you for what you are. Doesn’t matter, you’ll just surface later under some other fake name. The only reason I even knew about your post was a text from a Lisa WilsonFoley campaign staffer which is saved in my phone if you would like to make a charitable donation to see that! And for the record, I met Lisa several times last year and at the event a few weeks ago in Avon. She is a very nice lady.
Bill Evans
No Bill, I don’t care enough to see a text message to make a $10,000 donation to charity. People have written political thoughts under pseudonyms for centuries, you better get used to it if you want to be in this business. And I have no idea what LWF has to do with any of this.
OK, Mark Greenburg has zero chance of gettign the nomination – once you have outraged the party faithful, you’re done. i don’t care if you inject 3,000,000.00 nto the campaign – you will be nothing more thatn the uninspiring primary winner who will get 37% of Republicans to vote for him because he has an “R” by his name.
I will make no doubt about my desire to see Mike Clark get the nomination. i think Mark Greenburg is a great guy, good heart, with sincerity..but no broad based appeal, and uninspiring to say the least in presentation. Maybe if Mark gets behind Mike Clark he can get an inspiring figure elected, and hence his ideas transcended into the US Congress. Just Sayin……
CT Conservative,
What planet are you from??? I do not work for team Foley nor do I speak for the people who do! Just because I am a supporter does not mean I work for her! Only Greenberg has to pay people to support him. Lisa actually has volunteers who believe in her. Do not even think about taking what I say in a blog post and labeling it as Foley campaign policy.
Secondly, nice try on Obamacare. Lisa has never been for Obamacare. No matter how you try to twist her words, it won’t work. You are a one trick pony just like Greenberg. In fact, you probably are Greenberg! Totally TOXIC and living in LALA Land!
Cheshire Kat, I’m with you all the way! Greenberg cannot win!
Joan G. – You are right on. Thank you for your support!
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