{news} re: diana urban

[Ken Krayeske]

this from today's ctnewsjunkie.com

//

With less than five months left until election day, state Rep. Diana 
Urban, R-North Stonington, will attempt to petition her way into the 
U.S. Senate race by collecting 7,500 signatures by Aug. 9.

A later comer to the race, Urban will attempt to challenge incumbent 
U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who will run as an independent candidate 
if he loses the primary Aug. 8 to his Democratic challenger Ned Lamont. 
If Urban makes it onto the ballot she will also have to challenge her 
own party’s endorsed candidate Alan Schlesinger, whose candidacy has 
recently been plagued by news of his gambling habits.

[More:]

For those who don’t know Urban, she’s a self-proclaimed progressive 
Republican along the lines of Roosevelt, who doesn’t often tow the party 
line. This Tuesday during an interview at the Legislative Office 
Building cafeteria the Republican with an eye on the environment, global 
warming, and education rhetorically asked why all those things are not 
Republican issues.

Urban who is running unopposed for her state legislative seat said she 
wants to continue to serve the public if she loses her bid to get on the 
ballot or win the U.S. Senate seat.

Why is she running for U.S. Senate?

“If not now, then when and if not me, then who,” will stand up for 
Connecticut in Washington DC, Urban said.

An anti-war candidate, Urban, said, 70 percent of Lieberman’s 
constituency doesn’t agree with him on the war and Lamont, the anti-war 
Democrat challenging him “doesn’t have a record of any substance.”

But it’s not all about the War in Iraq. She said she’s concerned about 
the economy, global warming, and education. “And I have a legislative 
record to back up those concerns,” she said.

An economist, Urban said she’d like to see some consistency in 
Washington DC when it comes to the economy. She said the United States 
can’t expect to grow the economy when it tells 120,000 high school 
graduates they won’t be able to go onto college because there isn’t 
enough money to help them get there. She said that kind of thinking is 
inconsistent with a desire to build a robust economy.

She said she is a firm believer in a “back and fill” economic strategy 
which promotes small business and micro enterprise. She said the 
subsidies given to big businesses is a practice that needs to stop.

Urban said she was asked by the fourth-graders at Deans Mills School 
what she would do if her constituents were divided on an issue. She said 
she would “go to my core values and hope those values are why my 
constituency elected me.”

She said she bumped into a fourth-grader from that same school a few 
weeks later in a store. The fourth-grader whispered to her mother, 
“That’s Diana Urban.” According to Urban, the mother said her daughter 
has done nothing but talk about how a woman can run for office since 
Urban visited their class. And “If that’s all I do is inspire little 
Meg, then that’s okay with me,” Urban said Tuesday.

Urban, single-mom, said she is running for U.S. Senate for children like 
Meg, her 24-year-old son Lex, and others in their generation, who will 
undoubtedly inherit an economic recession based on the poor choices of 
the current administration under President George W. Bush.

“I always wanted to represent and serve more people,“ Urban said. 
Already her grassroots effort has helped her collect over 3,500 
signatures. She said if she doesn’t gather enough signatures she will 
drop her bid for the Senate.