Joe’s GOP Rival Looks for Support
If you live in Connecticut and are inclined to vote for a Jewish lawyer who has been spurned by his own political party — and is not named Joseph Lieberman — then meet Alan Schlesinger.
Schlesinger, 48, the Republican challenger for Lieberman’s Senate seat, until now was the alternately maligned and forgotten interloper in an internecine battle between moderate and liberal Democrats. Following Lieberman’s August 8 primary loss to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, however, the GOP contender has weathered the added insult of being officially forsaken by the White House and by national GOP leaders.
“Basically I’ve been ignored because they’re trying to turn this into a question of where the Democratic Party is going,” said Schlesinger, a former state lawmaker, in an interview with the Forward.
Recent polls have shown Lieberman, who is running in the general election as an independent, deadlocked with Lamont, while Schlesinger’s numbers hover around 5%. National Republican leaders, in turn, are not backing Schlesinger, a Conservative Jew who is a longtime member of Congregation Or Shalom in Orange, Conn.
On Monday, President Bush told a nationally televised news conference: “I’m staying out of Connecticut. You know, that’s what the party suggested, the Republican Party of Connecticut, and plus there’s a better place to spend our money, time and resources.”
Last month, Connecticut’s Republican governor, Jodi Rell, suggested that Schlesinger drop out of the race after reports emerged that he had gambled at a state casino under the false name “Alan Gold” and had racked up gambling debts in New Jersey’s Atlantic City. In an interview this week with the Forward, and in nationally televised appearance on MSNBC’s political talk show “Hardball,” Schlesinger denied that the state party is abandoning him.
Schlesinger told the Forward he believes that his poll numbers will improve. “I’ve won nine elections, taken down three Democratic incumbents, and I’ve always been a fiscal conservative and I’ve always been a problem solver,” said Schlesinger, who previously served as a Connecticut state representative and as mayor of Derby. “For 20 years, I’ve been helping people at the state level and the local level.” Describing himself as a “moderate conservative,” Schlesinger told the Forward that he would have supported the Iraq invasion at the time but he now supports pushing the Iraqi government to take over military operations.
Schlesinger has been particularly outspoken on immigration, calling for a seasonal guest worker program that would require immigrants to return to their home countries each year and to learn English within five years, with no fast track to citizenship. Such positions demonstrate, Schlesinger said, that for all the talk of Lieberman’s conservatism, the two men are in fact “180 degrees” apart on domestic issues. When asked whom he’d pick if forced to choose between Lieberman and Lamont, the GOP candidate answered, “I would write in Alan Schlesinger.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
