Free Republic

The GOP, with 1,639 accredited delegates, adopted a pre-arranged slate of running mates for Rell, whom they hope will be able to take advantage of her soaring popularity in November. They never had a roll call vote, unlike Democrats in Hartford, who battled all afternoon over their gubernatorial candidates. Alan Schlesinger of Woodbridge, a former Derby mayor and state representative, won the GOP nomination to run for U.S. Senate on a voice vote after Rell's speech emptied the gym. Paul Streitz, a Darien businessman, dropped his bid for the nomination on an immigration-reform platform, but was given platform time in...

That’s the word on the street, although the reality-based community has been known to confuse electoral reality with wishful thinking. Tinti’s not worried and says Connecticut Republicans realize that a vote for Schlesinger is a vote for Lamont. Just like, er, Democrats “knew” that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush in 2000. Of course, if we acted like Democrats we wouldn’t have two chambers to lose.HuffPo’s already working on the empty suit’s concession speech. Rational response to the polls? Reflex reaction of a party prone to defeatism and used to losing? Or just getting a jump on...

Alan Schlesinger just might make the U.S. Senate race in Connecticut competitive and lively after all. -snip- Mr. Schlesinger, the state convention-blessed Republican nominee, was at a lowly 4 percent, having been disowned by many leaders and most of the rank and file of his own party. The Senate campaign had lost its zip. At the Monday debate in Stamford, however, Mr. Schlesinger exhibited a nothing-left-to-lose flair in attacking Mr. Lieberman, mainly, and Mr. Lamont. His performance could stir the embers of this campaign and just might wake up more than a few Republican voters. The GOP standard-bearer has been...

FAIRFIELD -- Using apocalyptic imagery of civilization lost, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman blamed politics Friday for undermining the war on terror and leaving the U.S. vulnerable to "barbarians at our gates." The U.S. faces a patient and ruthless enemy in Islamic extremists, an enemy that "threatens not just America, but all of civilization," Lieberman said in a national security speech at Fairfield University. "We remain too divided as a nation, and in Washington, spend too much time fighting each other rather than coming together to make our country safer," Lieberman said. "At stake is the kind of world we will...

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Jack Kemp will hit the campaign trail with a fellow former vice presidential candidate from another party: Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lieberman said Tuesday that Kemp, a Republican former congressman and U.S. housing secretary, telephoned to offer support to his independent campaign, which the three-term senator began after losing the Democratic primary to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont. No date for the visit has been set. "We've worked together for years on some good projects that got done," Lieberman told reporters while campaigning in New London. Kemp was former Sen. Bob Dole's running mate in 1996. Lieberman, the...

If Sen. Joe Lieberman votes next year to organize the Senate under a Democratic majority leader, or is the deciding vote in defeating a conservative Supreme Court nominee, or in filibustering a conservative appellate court nominee, President Bush may have only himself to blame. As of now, the White House is not endorsing Alan Schlesinger, the Republican candidate running against Lieberman and Democratic candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut’s three-way senatorial race. The implication is that the President wants Lieberman—a hard-core liberal who had an American Conservative Union rating of 0% in 2004—to defeat the Republican and be re-elected to the...

HARTFORD -- A former mayor of the state's smallest city is thinking big and aiming high. Alan Schlesinger, a former two-term mayor of Derby and six-term state representative, announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate on Monday. Schlesinger is running for the seat Democrat Joseph I. Lieberman has held for 18 years. He is not the only Republican interested in the party's nomination. Schlesinger's announcement Monday coincided with the filing deadline for federal income taxes in Connecticut. "What better day to announce than on 'Tax Day' because I am really concerned our hard-earned tax dollars are...