Hi everyone!
There are going to be a couple of changes in our front-page lineup starting this Monday.
The first change is the departure of Headless Horseman from the front page. He’s not going away completely, however–you’ll continue to see him in the comments, as always, and over at his own blog.
We are therefore bringing on board a new conservative writer. I am very pleased that Heath W. Fahle, who I’m sure a lot of you know from his work as executive director of the Connecticut Republican Party (and creator of their blog, the Everyday Republican), will be joining us starting this Monday. Heath will also be starting on Monday as the new policy director of the Yankee Institute. Heath is a great writer and blogger, and I’m looking forward to seeing his insights posted here at CTLP!
Read more about Heath after the break (click “read more”).
By the time that he graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2005, Heath W. Fahle had already built a significant resume in politics – from interning at the National Republican Congressional Committee to working on the successful re-election campaign of U.S. Congressman Rob Simmons (CT-2) in 2004 and the office of Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell in the spring of 2005.
Fahle then moved to Staunton, Virginia, to manage the Chris Saxman for Delegate ‘05 effort in the Old Dominion’s 20th House of Delegates District. As the sole employee of the campaign, he did everything – creating and maintaining the website, organizing volunteers, event planning, and directing grassroots activity for Del. Saxman. Saxman’s wide popularity and hard work on issues critical to the district propelled his candidacy to an overwhelming 68% victory over challenging Democrat Bruce Elder.
After a brief interlude on Capitol Hill, Fahle returned to Eastern Connecticut at the behest of Congressman Simmons for a difficult 2006 contest against Joe Courtney of Vernon. Serving as Field Director, Heath oversaw all of the day-to-day field operations of the Simmons campaign from scheduling events to maintaining the website and everything in between.
When Election Night results showed the difference between Courtney and Simmons at just 173 votes out of more than 242,000 cast, the two sides settled in for a ten day-long recount process. In the end, and after several tally changes that saw the Simmons deficit down to just 43 votes at one point, Courtney squeaked out an 83 vote win.
In the aftermath, Simmons campaign manager Christopher C. Healy was elected Chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party in January 2007 and Fahle soon rejoined him as Political Director of CTGOP. In July 2007, Heath was promoted to the position of Executive Director – putting him in charge of all day-to-day operations of the State Party.
In addition to founding the official blog of CTGOP – The Everyday Republican – with Healy, Heath oversaw the statewide electronic voter database, maintained the CTGOP website, wrote the 2008 Republican Town Committee Chairman’s Handbook, and oversaw the 2008 RNC/CTGOP Victory effort. He played a key role in coordinating the Connecticut delegation’s trip to Minneapolis-St. Paul for the 2008 Republican National Convention. Fahle resigned as Executive Director of the State Party on Friday, March 27, 2009.
The new job brought Fahle to settle in Connecticut’s ‘Silk City’ – Manchester. Quickly joining the Republican Town Committee, Heath got involved in the municipal election by serving as an unofficial adviser to the Republican slate for the 9-Member Manchester Board of Directors. The Republican team ran on the Covenant with Manchester’s Taxpayers, an eight pledge platform for improving the Town. Despite being outnumbered 2-1 by Democrats, the Republican slate elected five of its members – Jeff Beckman, Mark Tweedie, Cheri Pelletier, Matt Peak, and Lou Spadaccini – to the majority on the Board for the first time since 1991.
The contest for the majority-making fifth seat on the Board was tight, with less than 25 votes separating Mr. Beckman from the next closest Democrat – dropping Fahle back into a recount drama for the second straight year. After a drawn-out recount by hand process, Beckman’s narrow lead held.
Subsequent to taking the majority on the Board of Directors, Fahle was unanimously selected to serve as Vice Chairman of the MRTC in March 2008. He served as the interim-Chairman from March to May until current Chairman Wally Irish was elected. Among other projects, Fahle also serves as the webmaster for the Manchester GOP website.
When Manchester attorney and former State Rep. David Blackwell made a bid for the Fourth State Senate District in 2008, Fahle served as an unofficial adviser to Blackwell’s campaign. Blackwell waged a strong campaign, but the strong Barack Obama wave ultimately drowned the Blackwell effort.
In addition to his politics, Heath is an avid amateur photographer, and dedicated Buffalo Bills/Buffalo Sabres fan.
18 responses so far ↓
I always thought Heath was Headless Horseman!
In any case, there is a lot of astro-turfing going on when it comes to CT’s GOP bloggers.
And Genghis, Heath is paid GOP staff. You don’t see any conflict of interest there?
Heath is leaving the state GOP effective today to go work for the Yankee Institute. So no.
Can you read Scooper? Doesn’t look like it.
Good luck Heath. Do us proud!
yankee instutue is a repubic think tank. why don’t you get one of the Q poll authors as a conservative writer?
seriously, why do you need conservative writers here? remember the election we just had? they are outta here! round em up and ship em out to alabama!
Never worth the energy to try to engage in intelligent debate in that direction.
HH’s front page posts helped bring a much-needed sense o’ humor here and lightened things up. Here’s hoping we get some of that from Heath!
Congrats, Heath.
Heath will be a great addition to this site. I look forward to reading his insight on Connecticut politics.
I just hope The Everyday Republican doesn’t go quiet.
Criminy.
This blog has CT news that I look for, like Rell’s latest gaffe, Dodd’s travails, but man, I am young-old, late 50’s, hard-working, with teenagers, and Keee-hrist if this isn’t becoming CT-Conservo-Wing-Central. Raising two young intelligent involved men makes me realize just how out of touch so many middle-aged working stiffs can be, (or are you guys all from Greenwich?) and how they see their interests allied with the failed corrupt Right, Rush and Kyl-Boner-McConnell-tude. No taxes no taxes no taxes – Death Tax! Know any other tunes, Heath?
Yankee Institute – CT’s very own AEI??? Not. Look at their site. Ideas? For when, 1974?
Reagan taught us this movement was bogus and spent spent spent. The Bush I took it to a war footing and set K St. in motion, and Bush II ran the country into a ditch, straight up, in a thousand ways.
Here’s to the American people continuing to trend progressive, as all signs and polls do point. Not here, no way. Steady habits indeed.
What state is Sen. “Boner” from? Because that state is awesome.
John Boener (sp?) is a corrupt foolish self-indulgent tanned Representative from SE Ohio, where hundreds of people lost their jobs when DHL folded their tent recently (musta been something Teddy did?). Yeah, my spelling was definitely an honorific. Check out his GOP Budget offering on-line! It’s terriff. Teh awesome. Ask Rob Simmons to check it out too. So moderate.
You guys run this state(and Congress) – why so intimidated by Conservative ideas?
I’ll agree – there’s not much being said or done by conservatives that’s making moderates turn their heads. The GOP is INTENT on restructuring, they just haven’t gotten past the “I think we need to make a change” stage and figured out how to change. I can understand why liberals, I mean, progressives, would prefer to silence the East Coast conservatives on sites like this – aid the foolhardy religious right in stifling EFFECTIVE AND PRACTICAL conservatism (the kind that comes from the Northeast where we don’t get hung up on gay rights and abortion…)
Fahle’s a tall string-bean of a young man who acts a lot older than he looks and has an endearing “aw gosh” sincere modesty when complimented.
Like other young wizards, he remains largely unaware of his own smarts.
(Everyone here over 40 – 45 knows what I’m talking about.)
Heath is an excellent writer and his stuff reads like that of someone who’s been doing it for a lot longer than he’s even been alive.
He’s a friendly personable soul too, and I’ll miss having him at CT GOP headquarters.
That said; it’s not as if Healy can’t do it, he can and as anyone who’s read his written product is aware, Healy can really write.
And as former newspaper reporter he can do so rather prolifically.
Just when is another question, he’ll probably take up doing like he does everything else – from his Blackberry.
Welcome Heath…and good luck keeping me and other liberals/leftists honest….
I’ve been coming to this site on and off for a fews and have contributed with greater frequency now that I’m back in the state but I didn’t even know there were other frontpagers….
As for the ideology of this site, I’d say it leans right but that comes more or less exclusively from the comments section. Of the 10 or so people who seem to comment on things on a daily basis, I’d say 6-7 of them are conservative.
To the new writer – good luck. To the other frontpagers – write more!
Thanks.
It leaned far left only a year or so ago. I agree and am surprised that the comments section has turned conservative in the past few months. Either the liberals are still on their honeymoon or busy governing. It would be interesting to see how long this slant lasts.
Personally, its not as fun for me anymore!
But the level of discussion has kept up and the level of discrouse has been very civil.
I meant that as an observation, not an f*** you kinda thing. I went back and counted – in 2009 you have made 18 posts on the front page. So, compared to GC, it’s not even a question of who dominates the frontpage workload. Now I don’t know if you do this for a living or it’s just a hobby but it was just a statement, not an attack.
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