Greenwich Post - "Himes Looks To Fall With Meet-and-Greet at Rails"

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Greenwich Post - "Himes Looks To Fall With Meet-and-Greet at Rails"

No stranger to the morning Metro-North commute himself, congressional candidate Jim Himes came to the Greenwich train station Tuesday morning to talk to potential voters.

A regular commuter during his days working in New York City, Mr. Himes, a Cos Cob resident seeking the Democratic nomination in the state's fourth district, laughed as he recalled how he once had the train schedule memorized as he sought to catch the 7:45 a.m. to Grand Central Station out of Cos Cob. But Mr. Himes wasn't there just to think back to past commutes.

Mr. Himes doesn't officially have the party's nomination, but he is the convention-endorsed candidate in the primary election against petition candidate Lee Whitnum. The primary is Tuesday, Aug. 12. With a potential race against 21-year incumbent Republican 4th District U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays this November, Mr. Himes talked to morning commuters and passed out campaign literature in a quest for votes this November.

Mr. Himes called his meet-and-greet style of campaigning "energizing" and said he enjoys interacting with the voters in that type of environment.

"Retail politics are fun," Mr. Himes told the Post Tuesday morning in between introducing himself to commuters. "You hear from people about what they care about. You see the good, the bad and the ugly of what people think....This is democracy at it's most up close and personal."

Despite being the former head of the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee and a member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation, this is Mr. Himes first big political race as a candidate. In facing off against a long time incumbent like Mr. Shays, Mr. Himes has had to introduce himself to voters for the first time. That's means shaking a lot of hands, meeting a lot of new people and hearing what is on the minds of fourth district voters.

"The most interesting thing about the last three months has been that whether you're standing on a train platform in Greenwich with the princes of the financial services industry or in a low-income neighborhood in Bridgeport, people are saying our economy is a disaster and we need to fix it," Mr. Himes said. "That statement crosses party and all of the divisions we have. People realize that if we don't have a fundamentally sound economy, nothing else works. People realize we are where we are because of bad policy and a lack of oversight, and they say this must change."

For years, Greenwich's delegation to the state legislature has tried to ease congestion on Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway by encouraging more people to commute by train. However progress has been slow and with gas prices high, Mr. Himes has made one of his top campaign platforms new energy policy of moving away from dependence on foreign oil. Commuting to work by mass transit and not by car is an opportunity to ease traffic and gas usage and Mr. Himes said more needs to be done on a federal level to assist state and local efforts in the district.

"This has to be a partnership with federal, state and municipal government and that starts with a commitment on the part of federal officials," Mr. Himes said. "I have committed to seek a seat on the transportation committee [in Congress], which is something Chris Shays has never done despite the fact that his constituents live with a supbar transportation system every single day. Specifically, what we need to do is get money into our train system so we can modernize it, get trucks off our highway by finally building the New York cross harbor tunnel and by providing incentives and resources so towns can encourage commuting."

Michael Sohn, campaign manager for Mr. Shays, said the congressman is working to deal with transportation issues. Mr. Shays is co-chair of the bi-partisan East of Hudson Rail Freight Operations Task Force with 8th District New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Mr. Sohn said the two worked together "hand in hand" to get money in this year's transportation bill to fund all design work, environmental studies and other work needed to build an underground rail tunnel from Port Elizabeth, N.J. to Brooklyn N.Y. Mr. Sohn said Mr. Shays would get the money for the actual construction in next year's bill.

Mr. Sohn also pointed to Mr. Shays securing federal money for the new Fairfield train station, the inter-model stations in Stamford, Norwalk and Bridgeport and for high speed ferry service from Bridgeport and Stamford to New York City. He said Gov. Jodi Rell is already getting new rail cars ready for use in Connecticut and wondered if Mr. Himes believed he could get it done faster than the governor.

Political observers, including the influential Congressional Quarterly, see no clear favorite in a race between Mr. Himes and Mr. Shays, meaning Democrats have their best opportunity in years to pick up the seat.

Heading into Tuesday night's election against Ms. Whitnum, Mr. Himes said he isn't taking anything for granted.

"I'm confident," Mr. Himes said. "I've told my stories and talked a lot about the issues and I think the issues I've talked about are the ones on people's minds."

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