CT SEN Update: Schlesinger To Fight...
The Hartford Courant's Kevin F. Rennie has another exclusive dispatch from Connecticut.
Connecticut Republican Senate nominee Alan Schlesinger is expected to try to mount a fightback today as revelations about his gambling under an assumed name caused Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell to call on her Republican ticketmate “to seriously consider whether he should go forward.”Schlesinger, whose memory was refreshed throughout the day on Wednesday, took a shot at Rell by raising the ballooning fundraising and cover-up scandal involving Rell’s chief of staff. Rell has ignored calls to fire her majordomo. Referring to that sensitive issue won’t help Schlesinger rally party support.
A Schlesinger press conference ought to be the nearest thing to having the circus in town. The former state Representative has a colorful past which has surfaced in other campaigns. He ran twice unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for congress in the Fifth Congressional district in 1990 and 1998. A bid for the nomination to the state Senate in the Naugatuck Valley was also unsuccessful. At the time, Schlesinger took a battering over questions of his use of a state-issued telephone credit card.
Always eager to wave his degree from Wharton, he may be reluctant to admit his campaign is a failing enterprise. On Wednesday, he declined to provide specifics on his campaign fundraising, though he probably has not had to spend much of the $500,000 of his own money he pledged to use to match contributions.
Nearly everyone who served with Schlesinger in the legislature has a story about him, so today’s press conference may veer into areas other than the gambling life of Alan Gold, his casino pseudonym.