Clinton campaign aims to squash foe
By GLENN BLAIN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
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(Original publication: September 21, 2006)
Republican John Spencer's drive to attract attention to his campaign for U.S. Senate has been getting a boost from an unexpected source: his opponent.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election campaign — especially her sharp-tongued political adviser, Howard Wolfson — has energetically engaged Spencer, unleashing withering criticism of the former Yonkers mayor who is coming off his victory in the GOP primary.
The tactic stands in contrast to the Clinton campaign's strategy in the primary season — largely ignoring the senator's opponents, both Democratic and Republican — and it's caught many election watchers off guard.
"When you have the kind of lead that Hillary Clinton supposedly has, the usual rule is that you stay on the high road," said GOP strategist Mike Edelman, who is not affiliated with Spencer's campaign. "You don't give your opponent the kind of publicity that he can't afford to purchase."
While a Siena Research Institute poll released this week showed the Democratic incumbent with a commanding 29-point lead, Spencer's campaign thinks Wolfson's attacks are a sign that the senator is nervous about the race.
"I think they are taking to heart what John said on primary night: that Hillary Clinton is in for the fight of her life," Spencer spokesman Rob Ryan said.
Edelman and other pundits agree that Clinton may have concerns, but suspect they have more to do with the 2008 election and her anticipated presidential campaign than they do any possible threat to her re-election this year.
"They want to take this guy out," said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College in Manhattan. "They want to come out of this general election with momentum. They want to bury this guy. They want devastation. They want a total blowout."
Muzzio described Spencer as "almost the ideal foil" for Clinton because of his staunchly conservative views. By attacking Spencer and making him seem like an extremist, Clinton can position herself as a centrist.
"If they could have invented a candidate to run against Hillary Clinton, they probably couldn't have invented a candidate better than John Spencer," Muzzio said.
"She is looking to '08 through this year," Edelman theorized. "In order for her to convince the Democratic Party that she is a winner, she has to show that she is more than a blue-state vote-getter. There are pockets of New York that are relatively conservative and she is trying to drive up her votes in those areas by making him unacceptable."
Clinton campaign officials flatly reject any notion that their moves are made with 2008 in mind. Their intention, they insisted, is simply to respond to attacks made against the senator by Spencer and other Republicans.
"John Spencer told New Yorkers that he would run a positive campaign, but instead he has chosen to hurl personal insults at Senator Clinton," Wolfson said in an e-mail this week. "We are going to hold Mr. Spencer accountable for his words."
Wolfson's first significant volley against Spencer came last Thursday in response to a TV interview the Republican gave a night earlier. In that interview, Spencer claimed he'd never run a negative campaign.
"Given John Spencer's history, he probably doesn't consider a campaign negative until he threatens to murder his opponent," Wolfson said in a statement distributed to reporters. He was referring to an instance during Spencer's tenure as mayor of Yonkers when he jokingly threatened to kill the governor and a federal judge.
A day later, Wolfson followed up with a lengthy e-mail to reporters in which he detailed numerous instances in which Spencer, according to Wolfson, had made negative attacks on Clinton, including a recent ad that paired a picture of the senator with Osama bin Laden.
"It's unfortunately very clear that John Spencer is determined to run a negative, personal campaign against Senator Clinton," Wolfson said in the second e-mail to reporters.
Just how personal remains to be seen. Both candidates carry significant baggage into the campaign: The former first lady's personal life with Bill Clinton has long been an open book.
At the same time, Clinton's operatives aren't known to be bashful and they could follow the path set by Spencer's GOP primary rival, Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, who bashed the former Yonkers mayor's long-term extramarital affair with his chief of staff, who later became his wife.
During her own primary, when Clinton faced anti-war Democrat Jonathan Tasini, such engagement was hard to find — good or bad. Clinton and her staff barely acknowledged the existence of a primary race, which Clinton won handily.
Unlike criticism of Tasini, which could have alienated portions of her Democratic base, attacks on Spencer carry fewer risks and potentially larger gains, analysts said.
"She sees him for what he is: a pro-war Republican who can be taken out and whose charges are outrageous," said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who is not working for Clinton. "The more they push him to the right, the more centrist she appears and the better it is for her."
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