Hall, GOP newcomer vie for 19th District
By Alexa James

Times Herald-Record
November 27, 2007
Peekskill — A rookie is challenging John Hall to represent New York's 19th Congressional District.

Republican newcomer Kieran Michael Lalor, a U.S. Marine veteran from Peekskill, will take on Hall, a freshman himself from Dover Plains, next November.

Lalor, 31, announced his candidacy over the weekend at a last-minute rally in an American Legion Post in Peekskill. His coming-out party was thrown together on the heels of high-powered multimillionaire Andrew Saul's shocking decision to bow out of the Republican race.

"After Saul dropped out, I was ready to go," said Lalor, vowing to send Hall, once the lead singer of the rock band Orleans, "back to Woodstock."

"John Hall is so out of step with my hometown," he said. "He is a liberal Democrat, and this is a district where we've had Republicans going back to the Civil War."

The 19th District, which includes parts of Orange, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Westchester counties, was historically right-leaning until 2006, when Hall's grass-roots campaign narrowly upset well-financed GOP incumbent Sue Kelly.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has since targeted Hall's seat as one of the key spots to recapture in the next election. Katonah businessman Saul, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was the committee's top recruit, until his abrupt pullout last week. NRCC spokeswoman Julie Shutley said the committee would be meeting with other potential candidates in the coming weeks.

Saul, 61, did not return calls for comment but issued a statement citing "personal reasons" for his political exit.

Saul's campaign had raised more than $782,000 through September, including $100,000 of his own money, according to federal election filings. His coffers were scrutinized recently by The New York Times, which reported that he'd received donations from real estate executives involved in the bidding for the development rights to the MTA's West Side rail yards in Manhattan.

With the figurative Rolls-Royce of Republicans off the roads, the GOP is now left with a modest everyman candidate (Lalor drives a Ford).

"I was a high school football coach and a United States Marine," said Lalor, "so you better believe I have a plan to raise some money to be competitive."

Raised in Wappingers Falls, Lalor worked at a gas station to pay his way through Providence College in Rhode Island. He graduated in 1998, spent two years teaching high school social studies at Our Lady of Lourdes in Poughkeepsie, then joined the Marine Reserves in 2000. He did a tour in Iraq in 2003. Lalor later went to law school, met his wife and started a family. He now works in the private security industry. "My No. 1 concern is national security," Lalor said. "The only place you can really affect that is at the federal level."

Hall's camp shrugged off the recent Republican shuffling. "No matter who his opponent is," said spokeswoman Meaghan Smith, "he's going to keep doing what he's been doing since he took office in January, which is his job."