I never thought they could pull it off

À la lanterne!

Insurgents storm RTC caucuses and toss the old guard into the gutter.

I had a lengthy telephone conversation with one of these rebels, in which he outlined their plans of swamping the upcoming caucuses with overwhelming numbers and voting the incumbents out. Although I sincerely wished him luck, and passed along the names of a couple of possible allies, I hung up thinking, what a nice young guy — too bad he won’t be able to do it. I’m delighted to be proved so very wrong.

When the dust settled, many Republicans were taken off guard at the historically high turnout and number of candidates. The big surprise was the number of incumbents who lost their seats.

In fact, 21 incumbents ran and lost.

The surprises started on Monday night when District 11 held their caucus. Over 115 Republican voters turned out, about 100 more than the last caucus. 

In addition to Ms Arora and Mr. Michaud from district 11, by the end of the night Wednesday, party stalwarts who lost in other districts included Steve Walko (district 10), Carl Carlson (district 1), Paul Cappiali (district 4), Rick Cappoza (district 4), RTC Treasurer John McShea (district 6), and Kim Salib (district 11).

Also, District 8 had quite a shake up after incumbent Mike Mason, a longtime BET and RTM member, lost his spot. In addition, district 8 chair Linda Moshier lost her seat, as did Irene Dietrich, Phil Dodson and Randy Caravella.

Carl Higbie, who chaired the district 8 caucus, said the results should not come as a surprise. In an email on Wednesday, he named names in a pointed comment.

“The overwhelming turn out of Republicans, most of whom were first time caucus goers, was a referendum on Dan Quigley’s poor leadership,” he said, referring to the current RTC chair.

“He compromised our party principals. Nominating people like Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony (for Board of Education), being openly anti-Trump and frankly ignoring a huge faction of the party base were grave miscalculations,” Higbie added. “This is the mark of a new party, we welcome the folks we voted out to work with us, but the new direction of this party is a conservative agenda. This new slate was overwhelmingly elected because we believe that YOU, the voter are better qualified to make decisions for yourself. We want government control out of your wallet, out of your bedroom and off your face. We want our schools to be the best and our taxes to be low. That is the new reality of Greenwich Republicans.”

God, I love rabble rousers.