The Lieberman spoiler

GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger has no chance in Connecticut. But he's made Lieberman his punching bag, to the delight of Lamont supporters.

By Colin McEnroe

Read more: Joseph Lieberman, Opinion, 2006 Elections

Oct. 23, 2006 | Alan Schlesinger thinks of himself as a piñata.

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Connecticut feels like a papier-mâché punching bag, he says, because of the abuse he has taken from the media and his own party. The press has often acted as if he did not exist and the GOP leadership has treated him like a bombastic nut with no chance of winning.

Schlesinger is running against Democrat Ned Lamont and Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman, the incumbent. Schlesinger gets angry sometimes, he says, when he thinks about the way President Bush "basically gave a wink and a nod for the big money to go out and support Lieberman." He also got angry when the state party publicly called on him to withdraw from the race over allegations of erratic behavior at our nation's fine gambling establishments. "I was thrown under the bus," he gripes. "That's what made fundraising so difficult."

And he gets mad at the media, which has been covering something it calls "the Lieberman-Lamont race," usually because it's just too exhausting to type in a long third name with three syllables for a candidate pulling about 3 percent in the polls.

But that 3 percent was before last week, back in the day when nobody interviewed Schlesinger or wrote about him, and he had no money for TV commercials, which are the modern Cartesian proof of political existence. I buy TV time, therefore I am.

Last week, a funny thing happened. He debated Lamont and Lieberman. Schlesinger, who debates the two front-runners again Monday evening, likes to call this new phase of his campaign "The Piñata Strikes Back."

A former mayor and state legislator, Schlesinger is what you might call a Goldwater Republican. In his case, not so much Barry as Morty Goldwater, the guy who used to hold forth in the Minnehaha Lounge at the Wonooscapomic Country Club. Remember Morty? He'd start out kind of charming and get louder as the evening rolled along. His opinions would get more forceful and possibly less grounded in fact, so that by around 11 p.m., he had pretty much half the barroom to himself.

In this particular Senate race, though, Morty Goldwater is just what the doctor ordered. The poll numbers were frozen in place, with three-term incumbent Lieberman headed toward a comfortable victory over Lamont, the guy who beat him in the Democratic primary. While waiting for the inevitable on Nov. 7, Lieberman and Lamont seemed locked in a struggle over who could be a less electrifying political presence. Then Schlesinger jolted the campaign out of its slumber with the first big exchange of the first debate on Oct. 16.

"Joe," brayed Schlesinger, "you had more moral outrage about Mr. Clinton's indiscretions than about North Korea's nuclear proliferation."

Stunned, Lieberman looked momentarily like the Scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz" trying to give directions. "I thought the attacks were only going to come from this side," he protested, flopping a straw-filled arm toward Lamont. "I didn't realize they were going to come from that side," he concluded, gesturing back toward Schlesinger.

The remark, of course, spoke volumes about Lieberman's understanding of this race, which is that Republicans are supposed to raise tons of money for him and never lay a glove on him.

Schlesinger never got that memo.

In fact, by the second debate, Schlesinger and Lamont had developed a little tag-team wrestling act where one of them would hold Lieberman while the other punched him. Schlesinger described to Lamont a worker who failed to get the job done for 18 years.

"You're a businessman like me. What would you say to a guy like that?" Schlesinger demanded.

"It's time to go," Lamont answered.

"You're fired," added Schlesinger, smirking at Lieberman, because that's how he is.

With nothing to lose, Schlesinger will go on the attack again Monday night. The Lamont crowd, accordingly, now treats Schlesinger like a folk hero, even though Schlesinger has lobbed plenty of abuse at Lamont too. Schlesinger charges that Lamont is light on solutions and is a left-winger like Lieberman, whom he likes to characterize as the most liberal of all 100 U.S. senators. Since Lamont seems unable to help himself these days, his supporters are hoping Schlesinger will lend a hand by taking votes from Lieberman. Schlesinger bristles whenever he hears this. "Those are my votes," he snaps. "Joe took them away from me in the first place."

Lamont even used a little of his allotted time in the first debate to giving Schlesinger some "Hang in there, Alan" encouragement. Lamont cited himself as an example of a candidate who overcame long odds and said Schlesinger could do the same, which is a strange point to make, since Schlesinger's stated goal is the destruction of both Lamont and Lieberman.

"If the press gives me a chance," Schlesinger insists, "I'll win the election."

Well, perhaps not. After two strong debate appearances, Schlesinger's poll numbers immediately skyrocketed all the way up to ... 8 percent.

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