Leaving A Legacy of Success

edward-dadakis-fi-2

By Bill Slocum
Contributing Editor

Dadakis Steps Away from RTC for Other Pursuits

Edward Dadakis with Betsy Snyder and Julie Belaga in 1986.
Edward Dadakis with Betsy Snyder and Julie Belaga in 1986.

When the Greenwich Republican Town Committee meets to select its new membership Monday, a candidate on the ballot since the days of the Reagan Administration will be absent: Edward Dadakis.

Dadakis, who currently represents District 1 on the RTC Executive Committee and was the RTC chairman for three terms from 1990-95, says he wants to make room for “new blood.”

“I’m happy with the RTC,” Dadakis says. “I just think it’s time to move on, give other people a chance.”

Dadakis emphasizes he is not leaving politics or party activity, but moving into a new arena. One critical piece of his Republican activities, representing Greenwich, Stamford, and New Canaan on the Republican State Central Committee, will continue, as will his tenure on the Representative Town Meeting, which began in 1979. And Dadakis does plan to seek appointment as an RTC associate member.

First elected to the RTC in 1984, Dadakis quickly made himself a fixture in the local party’s leadership structure. He chaired the Greenwich campaign for Julie Belaga, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, in 1986, and two years later, was doing the same for the party’s presidential candidate, and local son, George H. W. Bush.

Dadakis describes his legacy on the RTC as a simple one: “Ultimately, I maintained Republican ideals, advanced Republican candidates, helped them raise money, and got them elected.”

Even before he came to the RTC, or was old enough to vote, Dadakis was an active Republican.  In 1970, at 14 years old and a Greenwich High freshman, he was working on the first U.S. Senate campaign of Lowell Weicker, then a Republican residing in Greenwich. “I used to drive around in a camper, and meet him at campaign events,” Dadakis says. “We got to be good friends.”

It was for that reason the first gubernatorial campaign Dadakis oversaw as party chair, in 1990, became a “bittersweet” affair. Weicker was running for governor that year, but not as a Republican.

“You talk about party discipline, that was a tough time,” Dadakis says. “There was a split. We had to maintain discipline. Weicker won Connecticut that year, but not his hometown. We were able to deliver Greenwich for John Rowland.”

Also that year, Dadakis introduced an event that has taken place nearly every year since on the Saturday before an election, the Campaign Blitz.

Dadakis speaking at one of his favorite events, the Republican  Campaign Blitz. Here for Jim Lash and Peter Crumbine.
Dadakis speaking at one of his favorite events, the Republican
Campaign Blitz. Here for Jim Lash and Peter Crumbine.

“Starting with a motorcade through town with our local candidates, we then met up with John Rowland and the other statewide candidates then went to campaign headquarters for a big rally,” Dadakis recalls. “We’ve held the blitz almost every year since then. It is a fun day, bringing lots of Republican volunteers together with our candidates and rallying around town to meet the voters, passing out balloons and other campaign paraphernalia. It is the best event of the year, because we are all together with the voters.”

During Dadakis’s time on the RTC, either in charge or among those in charge, Greenwich Republicans compiled an undefeated record in state and federal elections. Even when the rest of the state went Democrat, Greenwich always went Republican.

“Anyone on the Republican ballot won the town,” Dadakis says. “I think the fondest times are when you work hard and win the election. People want to say that’s easy for Republicans in Greenwich, but that’s not so. Even in the 1980s, it was never easy.”

Asked about his favorite memories from his years of service on the RTC, Dadakis recalls some names from the past, powerful Republicans he worked with and learned from, like Joan Rader, Anne Isaacson, and Cindy Rubicam, a former town selectman who was RTC chair during Dadakis’s early tenure on the committee.

“People would challenge her at meetings, and she would handle them with aplomb,” Dadakis says. “I thought I could never handle that.”

Dadakis also mentions as inspiration Carmen Budkins, the town clerk, who joined the RTC around the same time he did, perhaps the only committee member with comparable seniority; and John Margenot, who won five consecutive elections for first selectman with Dadakis and exemplified what Dadakis called a firm albeit consensus-driven approach to governance.

“John was able to bring disparate groups into his office, listen to their arguments, and hammer out a solution,” Dadakis recalls. “As each person got up to leave, they all thought they were winner. That’s the real test of consensus building, and it is critical to success in politics.”

Dadakis says he plans to remain a steady presence in party activities, as he was last November, watching vote totals come in for Peter Tesei at the Milbrook Club, where Republicans gathered on election night. He says he was particularly pleased that evening not so much by Tesei’s fifth consecutive victory (tying him with Margenot among modern-day first selectmen), as by the fact Tesei won by his widest margin yet.

“One of my big pleasures was seeing Peter Tesei developing,” Dadakis says. “I worked with him in 1990 for state representative, when he was nominated by the Republicans but lost a primary campaign to Janet Lockton. It was terrific to watch Peter in action, when he was just 20, 21 years old. To see him continue to be involved now as one of the longest-serving first selectmen in Greenwich, it’s really exciting.”

Dadakis emphasizes he is going to stay active in Republican activities.

“I really want to work hard to elect Republicans,” he says. “In this coming election, we need to defeat Dick Blumenthal. I am going to work hard to make sure Dick doesn’t return to the Senate. And two years from now, I am going to work hard to ensure that Connecticut elects a Republican governor, because we really need one now.”

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