Ben Andrews, the former longtime leader of the Connecticut chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is finally starting a federal prison term for his role in the scandal involving the state Treasurer’s Office.
The scandal has it roots in the 1998 campaign. Almost ten years ago. There are some who say the behavior sending Andrews to prison has been going on much longer than that — but that’s another story.
This column is a personal account of how Andrews got on the Republican ticket that year and made sure his future accomplice Paul Silvester was running with him.
In the spring of 1998, Gov. John Rowland was trouncing Democrat Barbara Kennelly in all public opinion polls. Her own party essentially abandoned her, calculating that Rowland was going to win and they were going to have to work with him for another four years. Based on that scenario, it made more sense to stand aside and let him win than it did to go after him hard and face punishing consequences after the election.
As is always the case, Republicans were having trouble getting anyone to run as part of the under ticket. Democrats have had a lock on the constitutional offices — other than governor — for a long time and it is very difficult to get someone to run when they know they are going to be trounced.
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A Broad Spectrum
In 1998, however, Republicans lucked out. Ben Andrews, a black Republican stepped forward to run for secretary of the state. Antonio Serbia and Santa Mendoza were running for comptroller and attorney general. It was called Rowland’s Rainbow coalition ticket and it happened almost entirely by accident. It was not a brilliant political calculation, it just happened and Republicans took advantage of it. The situation was made even better by the fact that Democrats came dangerously close to nominating an all white ticket that year.
Originally, former state Rep. Vinny Chase probably would have run for treasurer on the Republican ticket in 1998, but for an intervention by Andrews and allies of Paul Silvester.
Soon after Chase became acting treasurer, in the summer of 1997, Andrews came to Rowland and reported Chase had been telling racially charged stories, including language offensive to African-Americans. Andrews told Rowland that, as a black leader, he could not stand idly by knowing that Chase was serving as acting treasurer and might run for the office on his own.
Rowland — thinking he was standing up for minorities — confronted Chase who admitted to telling the stories but insisted they were not racially motivated. He resigned as acting treasurer and Silvester moved in as the only warm body available. After declaring he would not run for the office in 1998 — because politics is too dirty — he changed his mind to join Andrews on the ticket.
The rest of the Andrews/Silvester story is history and sheds an entirely different light on Andrews’ motivations concerning the removal of Vinny Chase.
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Lies Abound
Also in 1998, after the implosion of comptroller candidate Antonio Serbia — who had dramatically falsified his resume — Andrews came forward to the Rowland campaign leadership to admit that he too had withheld information by failing to disclose that he had lied about his age to get into the army.
This is the kind of lie that is not a problem in a campaign. It’s like lying to protect your mother, but in Andrews’s case it was a diversionary tactic that helped him to mask his growing, corrupt and profitable relationship with Silvester. Who would suspect someone offering such a sweet confession of corruption? It is all so clear now. It wasn’t then.
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Dean Pagani is a former gubernatorial advisor. He is V.P. of Public Affairs for Cashman and Katz Integrated Communications in Glastonbury.
