Eight years after his release from federal prison, Joe Ganim is ready to run.
For governor, that is.
The 58-year-old Democrat Ganim told me, in an interview last year, that a comeback spirit similar to his own can drive Connecticut out of the fiscal doldrums.
About a year and half into his second stint as mayor of Bridgeport, the state’s largest city, Ganim surveyed the city that had recently re-elected him—after seven years in the slammer for corruption charges—and declared things were looking up.
“Positive things can and are happening,” in the sinking state’s worst-off city, he said, describing a recent record of small gains which “we need to build on.” He was excited, for one thing, about a development planned for the waterfront site on which he and Donald Trump tried and failed to build a casino in the mid-nineties. But he was also eyeing a new opportunity at the time: “exploring” a run for governor.
On Wednesday, he officially declared, delivering the necessary paperwork to the state elections commission while reporters swarmed. “I am far from a perfect candidate,” Ganim said in a statement. “I’m someone who has made mistakes in my life.” But, “I will run, I will run hard,” he added—evidently undeterred by his failure to overcome the state law that bars public financing for corrupt politicians. (His driver must have been feeling good too: After filing in Hartford, Ganim’s SUV got pulled over for speeding. His security escort reportedly clocked 100 mph.)
In our interview last year, I asked whether his own story of hitting bottom and rebounding would shape the statewide campaign. He said, “We should look at [the state’s situation] as a kind of turn the page opportunity.” Of course Ganim, who was mayor of the mostly Democratic city from 1991 to 2003, turned the same page twice.
Ganim was less forthcoming Wednesday, when after hours of phone tag with his spokeswoman, I asked how his storied past would color his pitch to Connecticut. He grumbled about a bad cell connection and said he’d call back from another phone. I haven’t heard from him since.
Everyone, he told the voters in 2015, deserves a second chance. Five years out from serving seven of a nine-year prison sentence, he got one: He reclaimed the office whence he’d once run a multi-million dollar bribery and kickback scheme, granting coveted city contracts in exchange for gifts: diamond jewelry, fine wines, renovations to his home in the wealthiest neighborhood of the state’s poorest city. He was exposed by a nearly 10-year FBI sting, yanked from office, and convicted on 16 charges of corruption.
Let Connecticut take a lesson from me, Ganim seemed to be saying when last we spoke: Hartford’s history of corruption shouldn’t haunt the state perpetually, either. If there’s a way forward, he went on, “It’s got to be understanding and then laying out some of these financial challenges that face Connecticut right now.” And the guardians of the future should be able to find a cure without dwelling in the past—“without casting blame as to how we got here,” he said.
Having dismissed the past, he moved to the unknowability of the future. When I asked about his plans to restore the state from its worsening economic slump, he considered the futility of planning ahead at all. “I always question,” he told me, “whether or not we can actually credibly project fifteen years in government or in the world.” Contemplating man’s subjective perception of time passing as perhaps only a convict can, Ganim said, “The Chinese look in centuries, and we look in decades.”
Still, in the midst of Connecticut’s budget battle—which waged on for several months while lawmakers warred over a $3.5 million deficit—he observed voters need to believe someone’s got the answers.
“I think people want, businesses want, cities and towns—I can tell you, I’ve been there—and residents want they want answers, they want certainty,” he said, “Or some type of stability.” Some type of stability seems to be why Ganim was able to rebound so remarkably in the crumbling city that saw him carted off by the FBI.
Those 12 years as mayor 15 years ago make him dependably familiar: He’s a known crook, but at least he’s known.
It doesn’t hurt, either, that string of prominent Democrats has declined to run on outgoing governor Dannel Malloy’s legacy of job loss, tax hikes, fleeing corporations, and sinking morale. Ganim reportedly made up his mind when the sitting lieutenant governor officially bowed out in November.
The opening for a not-quite-establishment candidate with a story to tell was, apparently, just too wide to pass up.
