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Devin Gordon profiles the candidate for GQ.
Everywhere he goes, Valentine knows everybody, plus at least one member of their extended family. In the parking lot of Beldotti Bakery (“best Italian bakery in Stamford”) he kibitzes with some rabbis from the neighborhood about how he was here just yesterday, kibitzing in the parking lot with some priests from the neighborhood. “What an ecumenical bakery!” he declares. At Twin Rinks across town, where kids from the local Boys and Girls Club camp are trying out ice skating for the first time, Valentine gets a bear-hug from the camp's director, Ashton Dominique, who's known Bobby V for 16 years. “You can count on him,” Dominique says over the din of stumbling kids. He only told Bobby about this event a few days ago, “and boom—he's here.” Before the kids hit the ice, he asks Bobby V to offer a few words of encouragement, then stands aside as Valentine spins an elegant, on-the-fly metaphor about how learning to skate is a lot like life: You get out there, you wobble, you fall, you get back up, you try again, and before you know it you're flying.
If you ask Bobby V, there is no finer place in America than Stamford, Connecticut, but he also doesn't harbor any illusions about its relative majesty. It's not Waikiki. It's not even Westport. It's a Metro North stop on the New Haven line, 59 minutes via express train from Grand Central. It's a stretch of freeway exits on the way to Boston. It's a finance outpost of 130,000 with the charmless office towers to match. “I mean, it's not the dirt, you know? It's the people,” he says. “The community, my entire life, took care of me.” So yes, of course Bobby V wants to be the mayor of Stamford. Of course he thinks he's the obvious choice. He may not have the job yet, but in all kinds of ways, he's already been the mayor of Stamford for years. |
https://www.gq.com/story/bobby-valentine-mayor-profile
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