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`My name is Adam Brecht and I'm running for the U.S. Senate'
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| By Asaf Carmel Photos by Alon Ron |
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How Adam Brecht from New York, who hopes to unseat Hillary Clinton, received a lesson in love of the Land of Israel
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Last Wednesday afternoon, as Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heading full-tilt for the Knesset chamber from the MKs' cafeteria, someone he had never seen before suddenly rushed up to him. "My name is Adam Brecht," the smiling fellow in the gray suit said, "and I'm running for the U.S. Senate from the state of New York." Netanyahu did not seem to be overly impressed. He shook Brecht's hand quickly and disappeared into the corridor that leads to the chamber. Because photography is not permitted next to the cafeteria, the prospective Republican Party candidate from New York didn't even get a picture from his ambush of the finance minister. Brecht's Israeli adviser, attorney Sagiv Rotenberg, was clearly displeased. You met Bibi, he told his client, referring to Netanyahu, but it wasn't worth a thing.
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Brecht and Rotenberg positioned themselves more strategically and waited patiently for Netanyahu to reappear. But as the finance minister left the chamber in rapid stride, the candidate had to chase after him again - this time down the stairs leading to the government floor. Finally he caught up with him. Reintroducing himself, he asked Netanyahu to have his photo taken with him. Netanyahu agreed and even made small talk with the candidate for a few minutes. Afterward Brecht smiled broadly and patted Rotenberg on the back. That was the photo of the day, he said.
The next major round of elections in the United States will not take place until November 2006, but Brecht has already launched his campaign. And he has good reason for this early start: To be elected to the Senate he will have to unseat a truly formidable foe - Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton.
Brecht visited Israel even before he toured most of the 62 electoral districts of New York State. It was only a two-day visit - but he wasn't here to admire the scenery. His mission was to have his picture taken with as many politicians and senior army officers as possible. In addition to Netanyahu, Brecht's Israeli photo album now also includes the chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi, MK Omri Sharon (the prime minister's son), ultra-Orthodox MKs and soldiers guarding the Jewish settlement in Hebron. There are also photos of Brecht placing a note in the Western Wall and examining fruit and vegetables in Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda market.
Brecht hopes his photographs from Israel will help him with the Jewish voters of New York State. The 1.65 million Jews who live in the state, most of them in the city of New York, constitute almost 9 percent of the state's population, the highest concentration in the country, and they tend to vote in large numbers. The Jews of New York take a great interest in Israel, and in recent years they have shown a pronounced shift to the right. Brecht wants to impress potential supporters with his accessibility to decision-makers in Jerusalem. People who see the photographs taken in the Knesset have no way of knowing he had to run after Netanyahu, and that his conversation with the chief of staff lasted exactly 30 seconds.
Until recently, Brecht, who is 37, worked as a public relations person on Wall Street. Prior to that, he worked for two Republican senators: Alfonse D'Amato and the late John Heinz. If asked, he is happy to explain at length why Hillary Clinton has to be voted out of office. However, it's far from certain that he will actually run against her. He must first be chosen as his party's candidate, which will be no easy task, first of all because he is a complete unknown in New York, too, and also because he is a declared homosexual. New York may be liberal and tolerant, but so far the Republican Party has hardly any gay representatives at the national level, and in the past year President Bush expressed his revulsion at same-sex marriages on more than one occasion. Brecht, though, is not flinching from the battle, however slim his chances. His goal, he said last week in Jerusalem, is to remove politics from the bedroom. Nor, he added, does he understand since when it became Uncle Sam's mission to stand at people's bedroom windows and peer in.
How to win the Jewish vote
Just three hours after landing in Israel Brecht was already at the Knesset, in suit and tie, closely shaved and wearing a gleaming smile that never left his face for a minute. His entourage consisted of a photographer and attorney Rotenberg, the former media adviser to two former ultranationalist cabinet ministers, Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon. Rotenberg also represents the New York communications firm 5WPR, which is managing Brecht's campaign. After Netanyahu snubbed him, Brecht did some quick strategic reassessment and positioned himself by the bureau of the Knesset Speaker, where everyone passes and where photography is permitted, and approached no few MKs.
"My name is Adam Brecht and I'm running for the Senate from New York State," he declared time and again, and immediately whipped out a business card. Most MKs didn't know who he was.
When the chief of staff appeared, escorted by his bodyguards, the candidate was quickly apprised of the identity of the army officer and charged at him without hesitation.
"My name is Adam Brecht and I'm running for the U.S. Senate in New York."
"Oh," Ya'alon replied tersely, "very nice to meet you." At this stage even Brecht had trouble taking himself seriously. "The chief of staff and I had a very meaningful exchange," he joked. "We managed to survey the entire situation in the region."
MK Blumenthal also tried to recruit Brecht for the Greater Israel cause. "Foreigners who come here don't understand the concerns of Israel after the Holocaust," she told him. "What prime minister Begin called the `Masada complex.' Maybe we look too strong, but we are really afraid for our existence, that there shouldn't be a new Holocaust. That worry is shared by people like me, who lost family in the Holocaust, but also by the Mizrahim [Jews of Middle Eastern descent], who came to this country in the 1960s."
After running the gamut of Knesset experiences, Brecht went to the Western Wall, where he encountered a group of high-school students from Acre. "I'm Adam Brecht," he told them, "and I'm running for the U.S. Senate in New York." Seeing that the group didn't know what he was talking about, he tried again, explaining that he was running against Hillary Clinton. That bit of name-dropping led to a major improvement in the communication between the sides.
"Will my picture be in the paper tomorrow?" one of the girls asked the photographer.
"No," she replied, "it will only appear in the United States."
"My name is Tslil Bremi," the girl told Brecht, in English, "and I am from Acre."
Grooming the candidate
On his second day in the country, Brecht and his small entourage visited the Jewish settlement in Hebron. The candidate stopped for a first photograph on the "worshipers' route," where Colonol Dror Weinberg and 11 other soldiers were killed in an ambush. Brecht waved to a few Palestinian children, then suddenly wheeled around. Am I allowed to smile, he asked Rotenberg. Give a serious smile, the adviser told him. Immediately afterward an army Jeep pulled up. Brecht said this was a photo he wasn't going to miss, and despite Rotenberg's order to the contrary he rushed over to the soldiers who were alighting from the vehicle. "My name is Adam Brecht," he told them, "and I'm running for the U.S. Senate. What are you guys doing here? Are you on patrol?"
Before returning to the armored van, Brecht commented on the filth that lay around the Palestinians' homes. These people live in their own garbage, he said. They have to see to quality of the environment, even if not as the first priority.
At the visitors' center Brecht met Noam Arnon, the spokesman of the Jewish settlement. "Tell me," Arnon said, "are you related to Bertolt Brecht?" The American candidate denied any relationship to the German playwright. "Too bad," Arnon said. "Maybe it would be worth your while to declare that you're related to him. Politicians don't have to tell the truth, you know. Look at our Sharon - he says one thing and does something else."
The two then went to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs. On the way, Arnon pointed to the minaret of the mosque that looms above the cave and said: "This is the essence of the whole problem here in the region - a Jewish site with a Jewish history and Muslim additions above it."
Inside the cave the well-attired Brecht caught the attention of a group of boys from a Be'er Sheva high school. "Are you the groom?" one of them asked him. Nonplussed, Brecht asked Arnon for help. "Can you tell them I'm running for the Senate in New York?" Gladly.
"One day," the spokesman told the boys, "he will be the prime minister of America."
"And I will be the president of Be'er Sheva," one of the students retorted.
At this stage Brecht was surrounded by about 15 of the students, who photographed him using their mobile phones and asked questions. "It's a pleasure to visit Hebron and meet you," Brecht said. One of the boys declared, "I proud to be Jew," and made a type of threatening gesture with his hand, adding, "Vee kill ol de Muslims." Arnon applied damage control: "Wrong, we kill only terrorists."
Rotenberg was in despair. "Even in India you don't see scenes like this," he said.
After the visit to the cave, Brecht was taken to the souvenir shop, where he bought a shofar and a T-shirt with the inscription, in Hebrew, "Hebron forever." "I want to contribute a little to the local economy," he explained. Arnon introduced him to the local representative of the Chabad movement. "He is running against Hillary Clinton," Arnon said. "That's already a good thing," the Chabad man said delightedly. Brecht was then entrusted to Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, originally from New York, who settled in Hebron 15 years ago.
Rabbi Hochbaum took the candidate for a tour of the Tel Rumeida site. "The Jews have no access to 80 percent of the city," Hochbaum explained. "The Arab children go wherever they want, but we can't."
By the nearby excavations, Brecht listened patiently to a long-winded survey of the history of Jewish settlement at the site. The rabbi and the candidate then visited one of the homes, where there were four small children without their parents. "Children," Hochbaum asked them, "do you want a picture? This is a good friend of the Jewish people who has come to visit us."
A first in the Senate
A few hours after visiting Hebron, Brecht sat in the lobby of the plush King David Hotel in Jerusalem and lavished praise on the people he had met. "These are people who live with a deep commitment and a powerful faith. You have to respect them," he said.
You are, of course, aware that the Bush administration is fundamentally opposed to the Israeli settlement enterprise?
Brecht: "That's actually news to me. But let's say you're right ... I'm an independent-minded Republican so I'm not afraid to have differences. I think that it's sometimes the friction of ideas in our party that produces solutions. If what you are saying is true, then I think that on this subject I would have a disagreement with the president."
In the coming year, he says he will visit all 62 counties in New York, adding, "The importance of coming to Israel is that there are so many people in New York that have a very strong interest, and more than a passing interest, in what happens in Israel, either for reasons of faith or because they have family in Israel."
It looks as though a photo with Netanyahu is more important to you than dealing with the issues of New York.
"No. They are both important. I am having photos of myself taken as we speak here in Jerusalem, but I have also had my picture taken on the steps of the state capitol in Albany and also at fire houses in New York City, and I've been on television in a few cities. It's not either-or. This is certainly my first foreign trip of the campaign and for this I chose Israel because of how important Israel is. I visit and talk to people in the state of New York every day and I think that this is something that complements that, but I don't think of it is a substitute for it."
Brecht grew up in Philadelphia in a Democratic milieu. However, in high school he grew fond of the image of President Ronald Reagan and has been a Republican ever since. "Half an hour after Reagan was sworn in as president, the American hostages in Tehran were released," he recalls. "Jimmy Carter tried to get them out for more than a year without success. Besides then, I really liked the Republican idea of minimal government intervention in people's lives."
Brecht asserts that if former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani or New York Governor George Pataki decides to run for the Senate in 2006, he will immediately step aside. However, he is almost totally convinced that both of them will prefer to focus on the 2008 presidential elections. Even though he has never run for public office, Brecht is certain that he is capable of defeating the former first lady, and loses no time in bad-mouthing her.
"Everywhere I go in New York City," he says, "people say to me, `If you're running against Hillary Clinton, you've got my vote' ... People are going to look at what her record in the Senate is, and it is an extraordinarily thin record and she has absolutely nothing to show. She didn't manage to make sure that New York received its share of federal homeland security funding so that we can secure our nuclear power plants, chemical plants and reservoirs from attack from terrorists ... She is allegedly some sort of expert on health care but there are more people without health insurance in New York, and in America now, than when she went to the Senate four years ago ... She's very good at book-signings and walking the red carpet, but I don't see any indication that she can legislate at all."
Brecht thinks his sexual identity need not be an obstacle to his getting the Republican nomination: "Is this possible in Mississippi, Alabama or Oklahoma? I don't know. I'll let them cross that bridge when they get there. But in New York it's certainly possible. In the city there's a great history of tolerance. We have people from every country in the world living in our state."
Brecht says he has very large support from the gay and lesbian community. "People often tell me that I am the only Republican they will ever vote for."
There are official organizations of gays and lesbians within the Republican Party, but when Brecht is asked whether there are any well-known elected representatives among them, he has trouble recollecting names. "There is Congressman Jim Kolbe from Arizona," he says, "who came out of the closet midway through his congressional career, and has been re-elected in several succeeding elections. So if I am elected to the Senate, I will be the first gay Republican senator ... But I feel like it is a non-issue. I always say to reporters that if there were a story `Gay Republican to challenge Hillary Clinton,' it doesn't make sense unless you're going to say: `Gay Republican to challenge heterosexual senator."
Brecht does not agree with President Bush on some issues. "I am against the president's proposed constitutional amendment that will essentially ban gay marriages," he says. "In my opinion, that amendment is unconstitutional [because it abridges religious expression] ... There are religions in the U.S. that have actually performed gay marriages in their places of worship. The government cannot then come along and say, `You can't do that,' and rule out a certain type of religious activity."
Then how can you be a member of the Republican Party?
"The president said during the final days of the campaign that civil unions are okay, and Vice President Dick Cheney said in August that he thought people should be able to live however they wish to live. I agree with that Dick Cheney position on that issue."
Still, aren't you offended by the president's position?
"No. I respect his point of view and I understand where he's coming from. I am also a very religious person. I pray to God every day and I think he loves me as much as he loves everyone else." n
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| Adam Brecht at the Knesset. "I always say to reporters that if there were a story `Gay Republican to challenge Hillary Clinton,' it doesn't make sense unless you're going to say: `Gay Republican to challenge heterosexual senator."
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This work is in the public domain.
