New Haven Independent

That face belongs to Martin Dunleavy (at center in above photo). U.S. Sen. Lieberman lured the New Haven politician-turned-D.C. operative back to town for seven weeks to help him out for the weeks leading up to the Aug. 8 Democratic primary in which the three-term incumbent faces challenger Ned Lamont.

Dunleavy, who’s 50, said his charge is to do “labor, politics and field” for Lieberman. In other words, tend the grassroots that have fueled Lamont’s surprisingly strong challenge.

As a Westville alderman from 1981 to 1990, Dunleavy, a backslapping outgoing sort with politics programmed into his genes, cut a colorful, boisterous figure in town. He has since served as national political director for the American Federation of Government Employees, then as executive director of the National Democratic Ethnic Council, a group seeking to keep Irish, Greek, Ukrainian, and Russian Orthodox voters in the Democratic fold. He has periodically returned to help his friends round up votes and interest-group support in local elections — in Martin Looney’s 2001 mayoral campaign, for instance. And now Lieberman.

On the Board of Aldermen, Dunleavy offered a unique blend of political styles. On the one hand, he was allied with ethnic-oriented ward politics of the Democratic Party machine. He was simultaneously a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Now he’s working for a conservative Democrat against a campaign that at least one Lieberman supporter has characterized as attracting “every single weirdo in the left wing.”

“I still consider myself a wacko lefty,” Dunleavy said proudly this week, as he bear-hugged Yale union leader Bob Proto.

“Thank you very much” for pulling Yale’s unions behind Lieberman, Dunleavy told Proto.

“We’ll stay focused on it,” Proto promised.