Three novice politicians set their sights on Congress

August 02, 2010 12:00 am • Last Updated: August 02, 2010 5:19 am

By By MATT COLLETTE Day Staff Writer

Candidates for the Republican nomination for the 2nd District seat, from left, Daria Novak, Janet Peckinpaugh and Doug Dubitsky, take part in a debate on the Lee Elci morning show on WXLM radio last month.

The three Republicans vying for their party's nomination to challenge incumbent Democratic Congressman Joe Courtney have one thing in common -they had no plans to enter politics before this race.

"I had no intention whatsoever to run for office until Obama got elected. And I hated the direction he was taking the country. I think what he is doing is un-American, is taking away our freedoms," said Daria Novak, who was endorsed by the state Republican party at its May convention.

Janet Peckinpaugh, a veteran television journalist who now runs her own consulting firm, said, "Americans feel that we know what's best for us, we know how to spend our money best, but our government isn't following that."

Doug Dubitsky, an agribusiness attorney at a Hartford law firm, said, "I got tired of screaming at the TV and really found myself concerned about the direction of the country in the last 18 months or so."

In one-on-one interviews with The Day, all three candidates said they felt compelled to step forward after watching the national political arena since 2008, when President Obama was elected and the Democrats won a super-majority in Congress.

On Tuesday, Aug. 10, the three candidates will go head-to-head in the Republican primary, one of the most competitive ballots in years.

The only time the three candidates have appeared together, at a radio debate last month, they expressed positions in near-lockstep. Along with fellow Republicans, they want to reverse Democratic policies like the health care reform bill, enacted by Obama and Democrats in Congress earlier this year, decrease federal spending and restore the Bush tax cuts to reduce the federal deficit and work to improve the economy through job creation and reduced regulations on corporations.

The party favorite

Novak doesn't just hope to win the Republican primary, she is expecting to win it.

Two weeks ago at her campaign headquarters in North Windham, Novak was finalizing plans to open another office in Mystic. And the campaign had just announced a series of weekly town hall meetings that extend until just before the November general election.

"We're having these weekly meetings and they're going to be a discussion of the issues," Novak said. "And, of course, Congressman Courtney is more than welcome to attend and join in."

Novak portrays herself as a government insider - a young staffer who quickly rose through the ranks at the State Department - who then channeled that experience into business success. In 2000, she founded Erudyne, a company that focuses on "cross-cultural communication." She then moved the company to Connecticut so she could raise her two children here.

"The idea, when I started the company, was that we need to be able to export abroad. And Americans often don't speak foreign languages, haven't traveled abroad, don't understand the intricacies of foreign cultures," Novak said. "So we taught American businesses, academia, government, but mostly the private sector, how to do business abroad."

Novak has been in the race longer than her two rivals, entering in March 2009 and frequenting conservative Republican events. She considers herself a member of the Tea Party movement, but says she is in no way a leader of the group. No one is, she said, adding the group is merely a collection of like-minded individuals upset with the state of government.

Novak said a key factor that got her into the race was the looming federal deficit, which she said is a tool of "generational theft." An immediate priority, she said, would be to reduce federal spending and burdensome taxation.

"The Congress is spending so much money that they're putting us in debt," she said. "We can't pay off that debt within this generation if they keep spending the way they are. Which means my children, and my grandchildren will be paying off the debt that we're creating under the current Congress. So that means I'm spending, this generation is spending, the future generation's wealth."

The long-shot lawyer

Dubitsky, a stagehand turned attorney, said he fears the current administration, with Congress, could move the country in the direction of a fascist, totalitarian regime. He said the health care reform bill is just one example of the federal government acting outside its authority.

"I'm concerned that this administration is trying to fundamentally change the balance of power between the people, the states and the federal government in ways that are prohibited by the Constitution," Dubitsky said, referring to the 10th Amendment, which says powers not specifically delegated to the federal government "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

A Republican Congress, with him as a freshman member, can act as a check on President Obama and restore the checks and balances the nation's founders envisioned, he said.

"My fear, or more my concern, is that the federal government has decided that the Constitution does not limit what it can do and is becoming an over arching government, like the governments of other countries that we are supposed to be different from," he said. "To put that balance on its head, even for things that may feel beneficial - like, for example, some people may feel that the health care bill is going to do good for some people - that doesn't mean it's right. Even it it's good, it doesn't mean it's right. If Barack Obama has that much power, then so will the next president, and the next president, and there's no guarantee that any of them will be as benevolent as some people think Barack Obama is."

Among his top priorities, Dubitsky said he would act to reduce the size of the federal government, working to return resources and responsibility to the state and local level, where he feels government can more directly serve the people.

"We're basically going begging to the federal government for our own money back. And it comes with strings, it comes with real big strings," Dubitsky said. "That's not the way it should work: we should cut federal taxes drastically and allow the state and the localities, the towns, to spend the money."

The veteran reporter

Janet Peckinpaugh started her career in Washington, first as a Senate staffer then as a reporter covering national politics. But she knew she had to leave Washington to challenge herself professionally.

"I didn't want to stay on the Hill forever," Peckinpaugh said. "I knew it was a place where you could stay forever. And they made it really easy: high option Blue Cross/Blue Shield (health insurance), four weeks' paid vacation, and you walk in the door and they would say, 'Oh, there are embassy parties every night.'"

And if she is able to return to Washington, Peckinpaugh wants to make sure no politician can stay there indefinitely. One of her key campaign promises has been that she would support a term limits amendment for elected officials, or at least unofficial restraints self-imposed by elected officials.

"I think our congresspeople have to go long enough so they can accomplish what they need to accomplish for the people of their district, but then they have to come back and live with those rules and regulations," she said. "And that's what we're not doing and that's, I think, why we're in the mess where in, because special interests come in and they really try to get you in their corner."

Peckinpaugh believes her 30 years as a broadcast journalist give her the ability to ask tough questions and the experience to know what problems the residents of Connecticut face. If elected to the House of Representatives, Peckinpaugh said she would not support a single bill that does not help create jobs.

Federal regulations, she believes, need to be alleviated to make it easier for companies to make money so they can expand and stimulate the economy.

"I have been talking to small businesses about why they're not hiring, about why they're kind of paralyzed right now, because that's who we need to start hiring," Peckinpaugh said.