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Reese on the Radio loves Connecticut.
So much so that, on Wednesday evening, he told Connecticut residents, elected officials, and candidates for office gathered on the green in Glastonbury that, although he’s only lived in the Constitution State for nine months, he already tells people “I'm from Connecticut.”
“I don't know why, but this place has done everything for me,” the hugely popular, no-nonsense, WTIC talk host struck a heartfelt tone at this celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“I want to stay here,” he said. “I already talked to my boss about renegotiating my contract, so I can stay here another five years, but I don't want to go.”
And then, as he often does on his afternoon show – along with his wife, Rozan – he turned it back to his listeners, telling them they need to love Connecticut too.
“I need you to love it the way that I love it,” he said. “I need you to love it the way Rozan loves it, because that love of it will make you go out and fight for it – not the hatred that never wins, that never draws people to your crowd.”
Thanking those who have stepped up to run for political office for the first time, Reese – aka E. Reese Hopkins, who hails from Hollis, Queens, New York – urged them to “fight on,” even though he knows “it can be daunting.”
“You can listen to a lot of people, as I do on the radio, who say there's just no chance, Reese, it’s just, it's not gonna happen,” he said, and then explained his response to that level of hopelessness:
But I push back on them, and I say it's never going to happen with that attitude. The only way you win is with a winning spirit, that is what each and every one of you need. So, I'm going to begin by saying this. I am done with the politics of talking about you can't hate the media enough, or you can't hate the Democrats enough, or you can't hate the politics enough. There is only one way to win Connecticut, and it must start with loving it.
Saddened and irritated by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont's (D) decision to reject the state’s participation in the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., Reese conceived an idea that received a phenomenal response from his listeners and friends who encouraged him to seek approvals to broadcast his show live from the nation’s capital on July 3rd and 4th.
Reese said loving Connecticut is crucial to winning it back.
“I am new here,” he explained to those gathered in Glastonbury. “I have only been here for a little while, and as you guys know, as I've spoken about my trip to DC was exactly based on that, that when my wife came here, who has never been to New England, came to Connecticut, fell in love with it instantly, and the love and the kindness that this state has brought us, it made me want to fight for it.”
“And when you get that kind of love from a place, from its people – not its politicians, its people – you want to love it so much that you love it enough to fight for it,” he said, illuminating further what that “kind of love” is like:
I need people to fight for Connecticut, like you would for your kid running out in the middle of the street into oncoming traffic. That's the kind of energy I need. It isn't enough to say that you love the state. It isn't. I'm sorry. It just isn't. We need an active love of the state to protect it and to take it out of the hands of those who will fleece it, from those who will exploit it, for those who will take your tax dollars until they can't take it anymore, and you are forced to leave. If you love it enough, you will fight to stay. You will love it enough to stay.
But this level of love involves more than just voting, he warned.
“You have got to encourage others to vote!” he urged. “You have got to tell others, and you have to do it in a subtle way, the way that I do it every, every day.”
Reese then explained his own journey. When many people questioned why he would even move to Connecticut – where everything is expensive and taxes are high – he asked his radio listeners where he could get the best ice cream and the best Italian food in Connecticut.
“And the phones lit up!” he said. “Something as innocuous as ice cream,” or Italian food, drew people in.
“And then I realized something,” he continued. “Nobody hates this state. You love it to death, I know you do. Something as simple as ice cream and Italian food. You guys will go to the ends of the earth to tell somebody like me, who isn't from here to go to these places, because they are the fabric of who you are, and the fabric, if I may say so myself, having only been here nine months, a fabric of who we are.”
That ball, Reese said, is now in everyone’s court.
“You've got to tell them, don't you love this place? Don't you love it here? Don't you love the ice cream place in Plainfield? Don't you love the Italian restaurant in Stonington? You've got to fight for those things, and tell them that these things are important,” he counseled.
“I really do mean this, folks, and I don't know whether or not you believe me, I really love it here,” Reese asserted. “And I want you to love it too. And I will do everything in my power on my radio show to not only make sure I am the biggest voice for Connecticut, but I am the biggest voice for you, that we get things done, we solve problems, we don't moan about them, we don't complain, we problem solve.”
“Now, I know you guys want results,” he said. “I know you want to continue to live here, but there's only one way we can do it. And I have got to say it's the corniest answer I can give you. It starts with love, and if you love this place, and I know you do, please join me in telling everybody else that they need to love it enough to keep it.”
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