Sen. Lieberman may not be the only Indie on the ballot
My Pat Buchanon supporting, Joe Lieberman opposing Indie friend Chris in Connecticut sent me this from The Nationa Journal's Hotline:
Just when you thought the Connecticut race for the U.S. Senate could grow no odder, Republican state Representative Diana Urban today took out petitions for an independent run, creating the possibility of a four way race should Democrat challenger Ned Lamont defeat Senator Joseph Lieberman in the August 8th primary. Lieberman has also taken out petitions.
Urban, 56, will be running as an anti-war candidate and in a brief telephone interview sounded like a Republican version of Cindy Sheehan. The three term state legislator, claiming the Bush administration possesses a "flat learning curve", says America went into Iraq for the wrong reasons. She says she was heavily influenced by recently published account of the war, Cobra II. On a more philosophical level, she cleaves to the Sun-Tzu’s Art of War, declaring that her campaign strategy comes from him: "The path will reveal itself to you."
Claiming "a number of women asked me over and over again to do this", Urban is not giving up her race for re-election to the state legislature, for which she is unopposed from her affluent southeastern Connecticut district, previously represented by Iraq war enthusiast, Congressman Rob Simmons.
I've emailed Chris asking for more details on Urban's positions and will update this with those if they seem relevant. But for now I think we can take this latest news as a good indication that, as Chris indicated in his email, Lieberman has opposition from the Right as well as the Left.
2 Comments:
this is all I could find so far-http://www.housegop.ct.gov/members/urban.asp
chris
Urban Petitions for Ballot Spot In U.S. Senate Race
North Stonington Republican latest to challenge Lieberman
Published on 7/12/2006 in Region » Region News
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• State Rep. Diana Urban
'I don't think ... it's a sign of being fractured on the Republican side at all. To my knowledge, she doesn't speak for anyone in the party. She certainly doesn't speak for the House Republican caucus.'
Rep. Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk
Republican state Rep. Diana S. Urban of North Stonington launched a last-minute campaign for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, filing an application to petition her way into the already crowded race against Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
Urban, who frequently has been at odds with the leaders of her party, said in an interview that she had made up her mind to challenge Lieberman after passing on a state Senate bid, and at the repeated urging of friends and supporters in her House district, the 43rd, which includes Stonington and North Stonington.
Her reasons for entering the race, she said, include opposition to the war in Iraq, a feeling that the country is ignoring its responsibilities on education and global warming, and that her record is more substantial than that of either of Lieberman's other challengers.
An economics professor, Urban has served in the legislature since 2001 and is unopposed in her race to keep her current seat.
“The only thing that I can say to you is that I have a record, and you can look at my record,” Urban said, an implicit jab at Ned Lamont, the Greenwich businessman and political neophyte who is challenging Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Lamont's campaign is built around his opposition to the war.
“All I can tell people is 'examine the record,' ” Urban said. “I am not a one-issue person and I have proven it.”
She said she plans to remain a Republican and that she saw no incongruity in running against Lieberman on the grounds that he has been too supportive of a Republican president and Congress.
“I am a Republican in the Lincoln/Teddy Roosevelt ilk,” she said. “That's what I am; that's the party I represent. I don't know where it is, and if you find it would you please tell me?”
Urban's petition effort, which came as a surprise to those who learned of it Tuesday, further complicates the re-election fight for Lieberman, the Democrat who already faces a well-financed primary challenge from Lamont, who made millions of dollars on a cable television company, Lamont Digital.
Lieberman has taken the unusual move of circulating petitions of his own to enable him to stay in the race if he loses to Lamont in an Aug. 8 primary, and forming a new party, Connecticut for Lieberman, that will guarantee him a line of his own on the ballot.
And the senator already has a Republican opponent: former state Sen. Alan Schlesinger, who has said he thinks the potential three-way race with Lamont and Lieberman gives him a better chance to steal a seat from the Democrats, who have held it for 18 years.
Given those factors, the response to Urban's filing was virtually uniform befuddlement.
“I guess I have four words: I don't get it,” said Rep. Lawrence Cafero, R- Norwalk, the deputy minority leader who is likely to be voted minority leader after the election in the fall.
“I presume she doesn't believe at this stage in the race ... that she is going to get anywhere,” Cafero said, when asked how he expected Urban's decision to be received by fellow Republicans. “Some might think it's a publicity stunt for herself, but I believe she's running unopposed (for her legislative seat). That's why I guess I would say ... I don't get it.”
Party officials waved off the importance of Urban's move, saying her decision to run against their endorsed candidate would not damage the party's chances of unseating Lieberman.
“I guess my feeling on that is that if Diana wants to run as an independent or the Diana Urban party, that's fine,” said George Gallo, the party's chairman. “I don't anticipate her taking many votes, if any votes, from any Republican candidate.”
“I don't think when Diana Urban does such a thing that it's a sign of being fractured on the Republican side at all,” Cafero said. “To my knowledge, she doesn't speak for anyone in the party. She certainly doesn't speak for the House Republican caucus.”
Schlesinger was considerably sunnier on the issue.
“The more the merrier,” he said. “The more the vote gets split up, the better my chance is.”
Both the Lieberman and Lamont campaigns said they were too focused on the looming primary effort to put much stock in Urban's potential candidacy.
“Our focus is on August 8, and we look forward to facing her in the general election as the Democratic nominee,” said Marion Steinfels, a spokeswoman for Lieberman's campaign.
“It could very well complicate things for the general election,” said Tom Swan, Lamont's campaign manager. “But we're focused entirely on the primary, and confident that we're going to be victorious.”
He added that it would require a significant effort for Urban just to qualify for the ballot, noting that Lieberman is using a significant number of volunteers and staffers to collect his own petition signatures.
“The idea of completing that many petitions is going to be very difficult,” he said. “I think even Lieberman will have difficulty with that.”
Urban was nonchalant about the odds against her should she make it into the race, not the least of which would be the potentially huge financial advantages for both Lamont, who has put $2 million of his own money into his campaign thus far, and Lieberman, whose campaign has raised nearly $6 million, according to his most recent filings with the Federal Election Commission.
“We don't have any money,” Urban said, laughing. “We have nothing except people that believe in me. That's all I have. I don't have enough money to pay my frigging taxes.”
Urban said she had been driven in part to consider running against Lieberman after she backed out of a run for the state Senate earlier this year, allowing fellow Rep. Lenny Winkler, R-Groton, to take the party's nomination.
“I was enormously frustrated, because I have a phenomenal amount of things to say,” Urban said.
Citing the ancient Chinese scholar Sun Tzu's “The Art of War,” Urban said that the “pathway” had been revealed to her as she grew frustrated with Lieberman and with his two opponents.
“I can't sit this one out,” she said.
Urban also seemed unconcerned about how Republicans would react to her drive to join the race, coming months after Schlesinger won the nomination, and implicitly criticizing the party's choice to take on Lieberman.
“I expect that the people I represent in my district will applaud this,” she said. “Because that's why I'm elected. Do I think that the central party will be annoyed? Yes, I do. But I'm not running as a party person, I'm running as me.”
Friction with her party is nothing new: Urban has frequently voted against the majority of the legislature's Republicans. Her boyfriend, Rep. Steve Fontana, D-North Haven, is vice chairman of the Connecticut Democrats, and rank-and-file Republicans have grumbled in recent sessions that she sometimes seems more a part of the opposing caucus than their own.
“Even if I don't get it done,” Urban said, “I can make a hell of a lot of noise.”
chris
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