New Haven Independent

Officially Boaz ItsHaky is running for U.S. Congress in this fall’s election in New Haven’s Third Congressional District. He’d like to take office on Jan. 1, 2009.

But don’t feel bad if you didn’t know that. A lot of people in his own party, the Republican Party, probably don’t know that either. They haven’t put up any money or paid staff — or any real effort — behind a challenger to Democratic incumbent Rep. DeLauro since she won her second term in 1992. They’ve basically given her a pass.

So ItsHaky, a 49-year-old Israeli-born acupuncturist who lives in Bethany and has never held elected office, has what he calls a “Plan B.” And a “Plan C.” If he doesn’t pull out this November’s election, he hopes to run again in two years, and take office on Jan. 1, 2011. And if that doesn’t work? There’s always 2013.

“If it’s not going to be this time,” he said, “Plan B is next time. If it’s not next time…”

There’s a Plan D, too.

In other words, he’s thinking about the long term.

He has to, he realizes. For, in his view, he’s running against two opponents: DeLauro. And his own party.

(Technically, he has a third opponent: The Green Party candidate, Ralph Ferrucci.)

ItsHaky— who waged unsuccessul bids for first selectman in 2005 and for state representative in 2006 — hasn’t been getting out much yet in this campaign. Outside of an occasional radio interview, his name hasn’t either.

He did venture out to New Haven’s Westville neighborhood, to talk about his ideas over tea and coffee at Bella’s Cafe. If campaigns were won based on who’s fun to kibbitz with over java, he’d have a fighting chance.

ItsHaky came off as passionate and polite as he described how he disagrees, and also sometimes agrees, with incumbent DeLauro. Check out his pitch, and see if you too consider him a dead ringer for Ben Kingsley, by pressing the play arrow on this video sampler.

In part, ItsHaky attributed the Republicans’ weaknesses in much of Connecticut to the party’s rightward turn on social issues. He seconded DeLauro’s positions on pay equity for women, for instance. On abortion, for the most part. (He said he’ll vote pro-choice if elected, but also considers himself partly “pro-life” in an international context.) He backed civil unions, with all the legal rights afforded to married couples, though he stopped short of endorsing gay marriage.

“I think Rosa DeLauro has done a lot for the advancement of gender equality and pay equity and women’s issues and so forth, which I’m very big on,” ItsHaky said.

“I was born and raised on a kibbutz in Ramot-Menashe, where gender equality is a given and normal. As a young man in my teens I worked in my kibbutz dairy cow shed, 300 dairy cows. My sister worked side by side of me not because she was told to, was forced to, but because she wanted to. She got the job… For me gender equality is a given and very normal. However, in America, we haven’t come to that point…”

A National Sales Tax

Where he departed from DeLauro clearly was on economics. ItsHaky called for a national sales tax to replace the income tax. He called it fairer to everybody. He was asked if a sales tax hits poorer and working-class families disproportionately hard. He responded by citing Democratic calls for middle-class tax cuts and increased tax rates on the wealthy.

“What the Democrats are offering right now is … a 21st century Robin Hood style of economics, which is not fair,” he argued. “There are a lot of people who make a lot of money who earn it honestly.”

ItsHaky had a meeting planned with Community Watchdog Project founder Dustin Gold to discuss appearing at a rally this coming weekend to protest New Haven’s immigrant-friendly municipal ID card. Itzhasky, who came to this country in 1989, said he support legal immigration, but not efforts at the municipal level to help people here illegally.

At the center of his agenda is a call for a new energy policy. He criticized DeLauro for concentrating on alleged speculation by oil companies in her original response to soaring gas prices. (Click here to read about that.) ItsHaky devotes a section of his campaign website to a plan for increased domestic oil drilling in the short term, and a “Manhattan Project” style search for new energy sources and technology for the long term. (Click here for a story on DeLauro and green tech jobs.) He also said in the Westville interview that he sees the role of a Congressman as helping to lure new-generation energy companies to the district.

GOP presidential candidate John McCain offers a similar proposal for a Manhattan Project-style energy idea search. ItzHasky said he’s a proud supporter of the McCain-Palin presidential ticket. Sarah Palin’s stance on social issues notwithstanding.

He sees himself in Palin. “I think she is doing very well considering the political environment within her party that she had to deal with,” he said.”I have a lot of sympathy for her because I am going through the same thing in Connecticut. I consider myself an outsider, not an insider.”

ItsHaky didn’t mince words about his state party. It gives him “very little” money for his campaign, he said; “a lot of things have been promised to me haven’t come through… People within my own party don’t consider me as an insider…”

He has a diagnosis for the failures of Connecticut’s Republican Party, from its loss of Congressional seats and its minority status in Hartford to the jailing of corrupt officials in Gov. Rowland’s administration: “Immune Deficiency Syndrome.”

“There are so many opportunistic factors destructive to the party that are taking advantage of the weakness of the Republicans here in Connecticut. The cronyism. Corruption. The good old boys’ network, for instance. All this … [leads ] to this very poor performance we are having in Connecticut.”

The check arrived. ItsHaky, friendly but firm, refused to accept a free cup of joe. He doesn’t take PAC (political action committee) money, he said. And he doesn’t allow reporters, or anyone else involved in the political game, to buy him treats.

“That,” he pointed out, “is how John Rowland got started.”