Hear the radio version of this story.
An unusual candidate is running for Congress in East Tennessee. Allan Levene wants to upset Rep. Chuck Fleishmann in the Aug. 4 Republican primary.
The catch? Levene lives in Georgia.
And that's not even the most unusual aspect of his campaign.
This might sound like something out of a late-night infomercial, but Allan Levene says he will offer get-rich seminars on how to "create a substantial income without having to go to work ever again" to top campaign donors, according to his campaign website. He calls it a "unique sweetener" to compel people to donate.
“If I win, then I will reveal to them techniques they’ve never even heard of, that I’ve developed ... which I applied probably 10 years ago and have proven very effective," Levene says.
But wait — there’s more.
Levene is also offering to teach a tax-saving technique he claims can save people hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He hasn’t even told his closest friends about it, he says, “because once I reveal it, there’s going to be a window of opportunity, and I’mwithin that window of opportunity because nobody else knows about it.”
Crossing State Lines
Levene is a self-employed business owner who claims he’s wealthy enough to never work again but chooses to work because he enjoys it. Originally from London,hecame to the United States in 1970. Since then, he says, he’s become a citizen and an occasional political candidate.
Levene is running this summer in Tennessee’s3rd District, which includes Chattanooga and Oak Ridge. His campaign address is in Chattanooga, but it's just a mailbox in a UPS store. The candidate himself lives in Kennesaw, Ga., northwest of Atlanta.
So why does he think people in Tennessee should vote for him if he's not living in their state?
“It’s the economy," he replies. "The problems that people have in the 3rd District are the same problems people have anywhere in the South or anywhere in the country. ... They need to make a decent living, they need to count on an increase in their standard of living, and they need to take care of their children.”
The Tennessee Secretary of State's office confirms that candidates running for the U.S. House do not have to live in-state.
In fact, Levene did something similar in 2014, when he ran in a Republican primary in Hawaii.
“The Republican party liked my ideas," he says. "The problem was logistics. Even phone calls between my campaign manager and myself were staggered six hours apart. So, other than signage to say I was running, there was very little I could do.”
He got less than 4 percent of the vote in the Honolulu primary. According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, he’s not expected to win this one, either.
Motivations For Running
Levene insists that his campaign is not a ploy to get publicity for his get-rich technique.
“I have no plan, nor will I reveal this technique to anybody, if I don’t win the election," he says. "If I do not win the election, then that would be a straight donation."
The Federal Election Commission wouldn't say whether the wealth seminars that Levene is offering might violate campaign finance laws. A spokesman said the commission couldn't comment on particular matters like this.
Levene faces two other Republican candidates in this primary, Fleischmann and Geoffrey Smith. Through a spokesperson,Fleischmannsaid he’s never offered anything of value in exchange for donations.
Because Levene lives near Atlanta, he hasn’t spent much time knocking on doors in the 3rd District, but that could change, he says: His house in Georgia is for sale, and he's hoping to move to Signal Mountain or Lookout Mountain — both in Tennessee.
Copyright 2016 WPLN News