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Democrats Endorse Candidates: No Girls Allowed!

By Kerri Provost

July 22, 2011

On Thursday evening the Hartford Democratic Town Committee cast nominations and then votes for endorsements of candidates for mayor, city council, and treasurer.

While they appeared to move away from the antiquated 2-2-2 model of endorsement regarding City Council (more on this in another post), they also moved away from women. Out of the eight candidates endorsed — one mayor, six city council, and one treasurer — not a single one is a woman.

Although rJo Winch did not get her party’s nod, she will continue to campaign. Flyers for her upcoming fundraiser event were handed out late into the evening, after the vote.

For mayor, the HDTC endorsed Pedro Segarra.

“What an incredible year,” Segarra said in his acceptance speech. “I thankfully and proudly accept your nomination.”

He went on to say, “Wooden put his political ambitions aside [...] that is admirable.”

Since Wooden, after dropping out of the mayoral race, then moved into the City Council race, he has not put all of his ambitions aside.

Segarra wrapped up his speech by saying, “I know, and you know [...] that this city can be a better place [...] but that’s never going to happen unless we work together to reach that.”

For City Council, the HDTC endorsed Kyle Anderson, Raul DeJesus Jr., Alex Aponte, Ken Kennedy, David MacDonald, and Shawn Wooden.

When we left after 11:30pm, due to the lack of functional outlets in the Bulkeley High School auditorium — the event was scheduled to begin at 5:30 — the HDTC had just finished round three of roll call (voting) because none of the four nominated candidates had received a majority vote. There is no run-off voting, which means that the same four candidates would be voted on, again and again, until enough people changed their votes or abstained. Despite protests — HDTC member Nick Carbone asked for the convention to adjourn because of his health — the plan put forth by a squabbling committee was to keep doing the same thing over and over. As we were heading out the door, we overheard one committee member exclaim, “roll call again?! [inaudible] Jesus Christ!”

UPDATE: Adam Cloud was given the endorsement for treasurer around 0100 on Friday morning.