Conservatives run for the RTM, and Dan Quigley has wet his panties

GROUP LETTER: Planned Takeover of The RTM Is a Clear and Present Danger to Greenwich Government

Submitted by A Coalition Of Registered Republican, Democratic and Undecided Voters: Stephanie Cowie, Jeremy Kostin, Arline Lomazzo, Jaysen Medhurst, Skip Parker, Dan Quigley, Steve Rubin, James Waters

Recently, over 100 candidate petitions for the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) were delivered to Town Hall. Almost all of them were submitted by members of the Republican Town Committee (RTC) and the far-right Greenwich Patriots.

In fact, the latter even bragged about it in an email blast saying it was “Great to see so many new names and so many Patriots on this list!”

With this unprecedented move, these groups are looking to inject their extremist agenda into the policy making body of our local government, making it a clear and present danger to the proper functioning of our municipal legislative infrastructure. This should concern residents of all political persuasions.

“Unprecedented”? “A Clear and present danger”?* Oh, please; such short memories. Some of us remember when, freshly returned from the Pussy Hat March on Washington Anti-Trump parade, Greenwich women started the “March on Greenwich” group with the goal of inserting female liberal members into the until-then non-partisan RTM. The Greenwich Free Press was ecstatic:

March On Greenwich is Storming the Greenwich RTM Ballot

That same year also saw the formation of a Greenwich branch of the far-left anti-Trump group Indivisible Greenwich, which shared the same ambition, and often the same members, with March on Greenwich.

And their joint effort worked, as reported by Greenwich Time:

November 8, 2017: Huge shake-up on RTM

Tuesday’s municipal election saw a huge influx of new candidates for the RTM — who were enormously successful in capturing seats on the 230-person body.

Overall, 73 new members were elected to the RTM out of 79 who were on the ballot.

Many of them were members of March On Greenwich and/or Indivisible Greenwich, groups formed after the election of President Donald Trump last year.

Two of the more high profile winners Tuesday were Indivisible founder Joanna Swomley and March On Greenwich member Elizabeth Perry, who has been a visible member of the group.

So, just as the Democrats’ invoking the Nuclear Option in 2013 to eliminate the filibuster came back to bite them when Republicans regained a Senate majority, our local Democrats’ insertion of national partisan politics into Greenwich’s RTM has opened the door to a counter-movement. It’s no surprise that Democrats are screaming, but it’s disappointing to see the former head of the Greenwich Republican Party join them. Dan Quigly is still in town, apparently, and presumably can still be found sipping gin and tonics from those little plastic glasses served at the Old Guard’s yacht club parties, but his day has passed; he might better spend his time by switching his registration to the Democrats — hell, he could even join Individual Greenwich as an auxiliary member — and quietly fade away.

*The term coined by the Supreme Court’s Oliver Wendell Holmes to justify the suppression of free speech. Did these letter writers use the term deliberately? Probably.

“I view with concern …”