Editorial

Campaign thoughts

The primaries are over, the race is set, and the next several weeks will determine who will run the city for the next two years following a vote on Nov. 2. We hope it will be a time when voters in the city will not only find out what the candidates are about, but what their individual visions are for West Haven.

A race that promised to be a three-way race only a few weeks ago, turned into a two-way race when what seems to be a bugaboo with local politicians – filing paperwork – eliminated former Mayor Edward O’Brien from his independent comeback bid. Paperwork filings, or the lack of them, forced the Republican endorsed slate to petition to be on the ballot only weeks before.

The candidates then, incumbent Democrat Nancy Rossi, and challenger, Republican Barry Lee Cohen, are in a clear field to determine the next leaders of the city along with their slates. Here is what we hope will happen during this year’s campaign, though we admit we are not going to hold our collective breath.

What will you do? – Most often, in fact, all the time, the campaigns turn into exercises in barb throwing. In West Haven this aspect of campaigning has turned into performance art. While both Rossi and Cohen are single-minded individuals and both can toss a one-liner toward their opponent, we hope the give-and-take does not devolve into ad hominem attacks.

What voters want to know is how the candidates will do their jobs if they are elected. With Rossi one has a body of work to survey and that gives Cohen an opportunity to critique it and say what he will or will not do differently. Conversely, Rossi can take those critiques and show her opponent is taking a wrong tack or does not know the ins and outs of a certain issue. That goes with the territory.

We hope it goes beyond that, however. The leaders of our city must provide a vision of what they see happening in the next few years and how they intend to facilitate it. How will the city be a better place when they leave office? What will be done to make things better.

Leave the platitudes at home – When it comes to campaigns and sports personalities one can always be sure to hear a platitude – a catch phrase, or overly broad statement that never answers a question but remains in a positive light. Leave them out of the speechifying, and if a question is posed answer directly.

Residents want – and deserve – to have their concerns answered and those answers shouldn’t be cluttered with platitudes that say nothing. Word salads are not very appetizing fare.

Be respectful – Party politics in West Haven has been termed “hard ball,” and to a large extent that is true. But hard ball does not have to include disrespect of the opponent, of the position, or of the public. When a candidate is disrespectful, all three are harmed.

Clarity of position, and understanding your opponent’s position is important, especially if you find you must defend against it. Waving one’s hand and scoffing at a position taken by a candidate is no way to let the public know why a position is bad or good. It may, in fact, turn voters off.

As we prepare to get fully into the 2021 municipal campaign, we are eager to see what both candidates see as the future of West Haven. That will serve the public and inform the voters. That is what campaigns are supposed to do.