1st District challenger faults Allen over votes to fund war

PORTLAND – U.S. Rep. Tom Allen can no longer claim to oppose the Iraq war in his bid for re-election, independent challenger Dexter Kamilewicz charges.

Kamilewicz, a lifelong Democrat who supported and even volunteered to make phone calls for Allen in earlier campaigns for the 1st District, now is running against the five-term incumbent, largely fueled by his passionate opposition to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Allen continues to describe himself as an opponent to the war, noting he spoke out against the March 2003 invasion and that he remained critical of the management of the occupation. In June, Allen called for the removal of U.S. troops in Iraq in 2007.

But in an interview Wednesday, Kamilewicz argued that he, and not Allen, can lay claim to being the true anti-war candidate because Allen has voted 11 times in support of funding the effort in Iraq. And he pulls no punches in his criticism of the incumbent.

“The overwhelming character failing that Tom has exhibited is talking out of both sides of his mouth. You cannot fund a war and say you’re against the war. It’s intellectually dishonest and it’s fundamentally dishonest. It really is a lie,” he said.

The Allen camp counters that the incumbent “stridently opposed” the war, according to the campaign’s Mike Cuzzi, and that votes to pay for body and vehicle armor and roadside bomb detection equipment are necessary to keep the troops safe.

To deny that funding would be “immoral,” Cuzzi said, and argued Kamilewicz is deliberately misinterpreting the funding votes.

Unlike the Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in Connecticut last month, in which challenger Ned Lamont defeated incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman by tapping into widespread opposition to the war, Maine’s 1st District race includes three candidates who support an end to the U.S. occupation.

Republican nominee Darlene Curley, currently a state representative from Scarborough, favors developing a strategy that would begin to bring U.S. troops home in two years.

But it is Kamilewicz who is presenting himself as the candidate who will make a stand in Congress to end the war.

“It’s the first thing I would do,” he said, calling for an immediate cease-fire and then a timetable for troop withdrawal. Once the troops are home, he would have Congress work on a plan to rebuild Iraq, similar to the way the U.S. rebuilt Europe and Japan after World War II.

A senior vice-president with a large property management firm based in Portland, Kamilewicz, 62, lives in Harpswell with his wife. The couple have five grown children, including three daughters who joined the family from South America and Africa.

Their biological son, Ben, figures into Kamilewicz’s stance on the war. An All-American cross-country skier in high school, Ben continued to compete at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.,, then was recruited by the Vermont National Guard, which suggested he could train to compete in the biathlon in the Olympics while serving.

But plans changed after the Sept. 11 attacks, and in July 2005 Ben began serving in Iraq. Three times the vehicle he was in sustained roadside bomb explosions, leaving him with concussions and chronic back pain. He is now back in the U.S.

Kamilewicz strongly opposed the invasion even before he knew his son might serve there, he said, but seeing the war up close through Ben’s eyes has given sharper focus to that opposition.

“They are another tool,” he said of the troops. “They’re not human beings. Nobody cared about them.”

Kamilewicz, who has never sought elected office before, was recruited to run by veterans who oppose the war. Had Allen not voted to continue funding the war, Kamilewicz said, he would not be challenging the incumbent.

“I’m the proverbial guy who is ‘mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,'” he said.

Kamilewicz charges that “Democrats are as responsible for the war as Republicans.”

On the campaign trail, he introduces himself as an independent and tries to present a handout that outlines his positions. Most applaud his independence, saying they are fed up with partisan politics. But as soon as he tells voters he’s running against Allen, some of the same people politely refuse to accept his campaign literature, saying Allen “is a good guy.”

Kamilewicz then engages the voter in conversation and explains his view that Allen “had 11 chances to vote against funding for the war. Do you know of any enterprise that, not funded, survives?” he asks.