Griebel ’71 considering run for Conn. governor

By Lindsay Brewer | 12/12/09 2:13pm

 

 

Courtesy Of Ct.Gov

An­other Dart­mouth grad is look­ing to enter the po­lit­i­cal fray.

Nel­son “Oz” Griebel ’71 in­di­cated pub­licly last week that he may seek the Con­necti­cut gov­er­nor­ship in 2010 as a Re­pub­li­can.

Griebel, in an in­ter­view with The Dart­mouth, said he will likely an­nounce whether he will ac­tu­ally enter the race early next year. He said he is in the process of re­solv­ing per­sonal and busi­ness is­sues that could pre­vent his can­di­dacy, as well as con­cerns re­gard­ing pub­lic fi­nanc­ing law in Con­necti­cut.

Griebel is the pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Metro­Hart­ford Al­liance, an or­ga­ni­za­tion that sup­ports pro-growth leg­is­la­tion and as­sists local com­pa­nies in Con­necti­cut.

While Griebel’s bid for the state house would be his first time run­ning for pub­lic of­fice, he said he has worked with the state gov­ern­ment through­out his ca­reer.

“All of the jobs I have had down here in­volve pub­lic pol­icy is­sues, whether I was at Bank of Boston or Mc­Der­mott Chem­i­cal Cor­po­ra­tion or here, so you you’re al­ways in­volved with the in­ter­ac­tion of busi­nesses and gov­ern­ment,” he said.

Griebel said, should he choose to run for gov­er­nor, that he will cre­ate “brain trusts” as a way to seek out new ideas to solve Con­necti­cut’s most dif­fi­cult prob­lems.

“My point on the issue of ‘brain trusts’ is to ac­knowl­edge at the out­set that no per­son has all of the right ideas,” Griebel said. “I’m try­ing to stim­u­late dif­fer­ent think­ing and if other ideas be­yond the ones that I’ve iden­ti­fied come up, that’s all to the good.”

Griebel said Con­necti­cut’s bud­getary dif­fi­cul­ties could po­ten­tially be ad­dressed through a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment to se­cure fund­ing for trans­porta­tion in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment and the con­sol­i­da­tion of the ad­min­is­tra­tions of Con­necti­cut’s pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, R-Conn., has an­nounced she will not run for re­elec­tion in 2010. Cur­rent Re­pub­li­can can­di­dates in­clude Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele and for­mer U.S. am­bas­sador to Ire­land Tom Foley.

Vot­ers in Con­necti­cut will likely base their final de­ci­sions on eco­nomic is­sues, ac­cord­ing to Uni­ver­sity of Con­necti­cut po­lit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus Howard Re­iter.

“You’ve got this real tug of war be­tween the peo­ple who want spend­ing re­duced but also want ser­vices cut,” Re­iter said. “In this eco­nomic and bud­getary cli­mate, we are look­ing for some­body who can deal with these is­sues in a way that’s fair for every­one, and that’s a very hard line to draw.”

Re­iter ex­plained that Greibel may be at a dis­ad­van­tage in the gu­ber­na­to­r­ial race due his rel­a­tive lack of ex­pe­ri­ence in pol­i­tics and the for­mat of Con­necti­cut’s pri­mary elec­tions.

“Each party has a con­ven­tion which sets up the po­ten­tial can­di­dates for the pri­mary and that con­ven­tion is dom­i­nated by peo­ple who have been ac­tive in the party or­ga­ni­za­tions,” Re­iter said.


Lindsay Brewer