Around New England

Candidate for Mayor Makes Straightforward Pitch:  ‘I’m the Smartest Guy in This Whole Damn City’

January 28, 2019

A 52-year-old community activist running for mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut offered a succinct reason for his candidacy during his announcement speech Monday, according to the Connecticut Post.

“People say I’m delusional. That I’m crazy. I’m the smartest guy in this whole damn city,” said Tony Barr.

Barr ran for mayor as an independent “petitioning candidate” in November 2015, getting 24 votes out of 20,726 cast, or 0.12 percent of the vote, losing to the current mayor, Joe Ganim.

This time Barr is running as a Democrat.

He and Ganim have a complicated history. In February 2016 Barr pleaded guilty to two counts of breach of peace in the second degree concerning an incident at city hall in which he was accused of threatening to “blow the mayor’s head off” (which he denied saying), according to the Connecticut Post. He got six months suspended, one year of conditional discharge, and an order to stay away from city hall.

Earlier in his life Barr served 20 years in prison in connection with drug gang activity, including, according to the Connecticut Post, once firing a machine gun at an undercover cop. (Barr denied that detail on Monday, January 28, according to the Connecticut Post.)

The current mayor, Ganim, served six years 10 months in prison (from September 2003 to July 2010) for convictions for racketeering, extortion, and bribery stemming from his first stint as mayor (from 1991 to 2003). He won re-election in November 2015, after persuading one of the FBI agents who sent him to prison to support his candidacy. He ran for governor of Connecticut last year, losing in the Democratic primary 81 to 19 percent to the current governor, Ned Lamont.

Two other candidates are running in this year’s Democratic primary for mayor of Bridgeport.

At about 150,000 people, Bridgeport is Connecticut’s largest city. It has the second lowest per-capita income in the state, after Hartford.