Connecticut Post - Himes Traveled Long Road to 4th District Race

News Article

Connecticut Post - Himes Traveled Long Road to 4th District Race

by Ken Dixon

Democrat Jim Himes, a former Wall Street investment banker running for Congress, was explaining the global financial meltdown the other day to a group of about 35 primarily black students at the University of Bridgeport.

"Our government is a little too focused on the big banks, rather than the people who want to hold onto their houses," Himes said of the big bailout legislation from the week before. "I would have liked to see relief for homeowners."

He said the bill, for which he would have reluctantly voted if he were in Congress instead of Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, needed more of the kind of regulatory apparatus that lawmakers in Washington have neglected to require for years.

It was that absence of oversight, he said, that allowed the financial and credit industries to nearly self destruct, taking the nation's economy along with it.

While some of the students nodded along with his answer, it was the Democratic challenger's take on public education that won the vote of Henry Chisholm. The 21-year-old, from Bridgeport, a senior majoring in mass communications, went to parochial schools while his parents scraped up tuition every year to send him first to St. Ambrose School, then Notre Dame High School in Fairfield, rather than city public schools.

Chisholm, whose part-time jobs include working in an auto parts store and Saturday nights helping out the sports department for the Connecticut Post, appreciated Himes' answers about the need for longer school days, more charter schools, smaller classes and more early childhood programming.

But it was Himes' personal connection that mattered most.

Himes stood on the edge of the stage and talked to Chisholm, instead of at him. "Most likely I'm going to vote for Himes," Chisholm said later. "Most politicians talk around you, but he looked me in the eyes."

It was a typical place for Himes to win one more vote in the scramble toward Nov. 4 and the final showdown for the 4th District race.

Himes knows a lot more about the geography of southwestern Connecticut than he did nine months ago, when he embarked on what was then a longshot attempt to unseat Shays, who's held the job since 1987.

Now, after the hundreds of miles have turned into thousands of miles driving to events big and small throughout the 14-town district, his quest for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is in its last weeks. A string of seven debates starts Tuesday.

The former Goldman Sachs vice president -- he left in 2002 after 12 years -- has been able to match Shays on fundraising. The seriousness of his threat to Shays has resulted in interest -- and money -- from national Democrats who are targeting Shays, the last GOP House member from New England.

Although the 42-year-old's public-service experience is limited to being chairman of the Housing Authority in his hometown of Greenwich and two years on the Board of Estimate and Taxation, friends and supporters say he has what it takes to be a good congressman.

He's young, energetic, bright and ambitious, they say.

One of his oldest friends, another former Goldman Sachs executive who now owns an organic farm and consults on financial matters, said Himes' sense of public service was formed growing up around Princeton, N.J., with a single mother who sent him to public school.

"He did not by any means come from a privileged background," said David Earling, a buddy of Himes since seventh grade who later worked with him at Goldman Sachs. "There was a culture in their house, an expectation, for public service. Public service has been in his DNA since I've known him, when he was 13."

Himes was born in Lima, Peru, where his father was working first for the Ford Foundation, then UNICEF, the United Nations anti-poverty agency for children. He lived there until he was 10.

After public school in New Jersey, Himes went to Harvard, then Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship.

"The guy's smart," Earling said. "He always did extraordinarily well in high school, academically. He was the student council president. Frankly he worked his (butt) off in high school and had jobs at a pizzeria and drugstore, too."

At Goldman Sachs, long workweeks are routine, but volunteerism is also encouraged.

"I think Goldman's a place where it's expected that if you're a superstar, you're not going to retire as a cranky 60-year-old investment banker," Earling said. "It gives you a perspective on economics and business and teaches you to work extraordinarily hard. It prepares you in spades for the stresses you'll face whatever you do next."

Himes and his wife, Mary, whom he met on a blind date when she was studying at the Parsons School of Design, moved to Greenwich 10 years ago. Himes became chairman of the town Housing Authority and later was a member of the budget-setting Board of Estimate and Taxation, where he worked developing its $315 million spending package.

Betty Bonsal, a former chairwoman of the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee, said last week that he's the perfect candidate to do what so many others haven't been able to accomplish over the last 21 years: beat Shays.

"First of all he's extraordinarily bright and completely dedicated to this," she said in a phone interview. "I've just never seen a more determined person. He's very exciting and determined."

After Wall Street, Himes became the regional vice president of a nonprofit affordable-housing organization that specializes in providing equity loans and has helped groups in Hartford, Philadelphia and New York. He took a leave of absence and has been campaigning full time for nine months.

Himes, in an interview last week, said he left Goldman around the time the technology bubble burst in 2002. "I was looking for something more meaningful," he said.

While his campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission have numerous contributions from bankers and financial executives -- he more than matched Shays in fundraising last quarter -- Himes said he would support public financing if elected.

"It's the hardest part and, in a way, the most ominous part of campaigning," Himes said of raising money.

He readily admits that to beat Shays, he'll need a lot of people voting for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

"I'm thrilled to be running with Barack Obama," Himes said. "To be running on the same ticket with the first African-American candidate in our history is very amazing. And it's not that he's just African-American. He's affirmative, positive and a stark contrast from the other side."

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch believes voters in his city may be the difference this year. He has some hard-earned experience himself, since in 1996, Finch was the Democratic candidate -- and loser -- to Shays, 75,902 votes to 121,949.

"I was a trailblazer," Finch said with a laugh last week. "I think that Jim is a fine candidate who has a good campaign going, but I believe the trick here for Democrats is to transfer the Obama popularity and enthusiasm all the way down the ticket and do that in a district known from its ticket splitting."

Finch said that while former Westport First Selectman Diane Farrell came close but lost to Shays in 2006 and 2004, this year should be different.

George C. Jepsen, a Hartford lawyer who is the former state Democratic chairman and state Senate majority leader, said last week that while Farrell was "a superb" candidate, this year could be Himes' time.

"What's really changed in the last two, let alone four, years I would say would be the public is tired of Chris Shays," Jepsen said in an interview.

"He's proven to be wrong on the major issues of the day, from the war to the economy and the public is looking for change and Jim Himes embodies the positive spirit of change."

Nancy DiNardo, of Trumbull, who succeeded Jepsen as state Democratic chairwoman, said Himes' fluency in Spanish, learned as a kid in Peru, has made him a hit among Latinos, even if he's from the opposite end of Fairfield County from heavily Hispanic Bridgeport.

"He's doing a great job," DiNardo said. "He's getting out there and our internal polls are saying people think it's time for a change. Shays pretends to be a moderate, but he votes for the conservatives when they need him and votes with the Democrats when they don't need him."

Around noon on Saturday, Himes combined politicking with a family outing, meeting his wife, Mary, and their two grade-school daughters at Silverman's Farm on Easton's Sport Hill Road for some pumpkin shopping and low-key, one-on-one meetings with people among the hundreds enjoying the warm day. The candidate, wearing only a stick-on "Jim Himes" tag, chatted with dozens of people among the hundreds buying pumpkins and taking their kids on hay rides.

Himes may have convinced at least one voter. Greg Connors, 45, an insurance adjuster from Trumbull, who was sitting on a hay bale when he walked up, introduced himself and made small talk for a few minutes. Connors, a registered Democrat, said the main issue this year, hands down, is the economy. "He seemed friendly," Connors said, adding that he'll probably vote for Himes.

"Shays, he's probably politics as usual," Connors said, shaking his head.

Courtney Rosenhaft, a 34-year-old elementary school teacher from Stamford, up at Silverman's, was already committed to voting for Himes. She recognized him from his TV commercials.

"I think people are looking for change," said Rosenhaft, who was accompanied by her husband, David, and 11-month-old daughter, Madeline. "This is the year that people in this state want incumbents to go."

Source