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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (60086)	4/25/2005 10:16:59 AM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

GOP strategist: The Clintons drive us crazy; and we lose By MARC HUMBERT AP Political Writer April 23, 2005, 10:37 AM EDT newsday.com ALBANY, N.Y. -- Nelson Warfield, a GOP operative with long experience in New York state and on the national level, says that until Republicans learn to remain calm in the face of politicians named Clinton they will have a tough time beating them. "The thing about the Clintons, both of them, is they tend to drive Republicans crazy, and then we do silly things," Warfield said recently in discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's political future. "We just need to stay calm, challenge her on the issues and submit that to the voters, and not become involved in the conspiracy theories," he said. Warfield is no stranger to doing battle with the Clintons. He has been a longtime adviser to Michael Long, chairman of New York's politically influential Conservative Party, and was a top aide on Bob Dole's losing campaign against President Clinton in 1996. There are already signs that Republicans, looking to block the former first lady's bid for re-election to the Senate next year, aren't heeding the stay-calm advice. New York GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik has been sending out fundraising appeals filled with super-heated rhetoric. Claiming Clinton is really running for the White House on a path "paved with her lies and distortion," Minarik recently kicked off a national "STOP HILLARY NOW!" fundraising effort to thwart her 2006 re-election bid. "This is not merely a race for New York," he wrote. "It's a race for America." Meanwhile, Arthur Finkelstein, a longtime adviser to Republican Gov. George Pataki, is preparing a "Stop Her Now" Web site aimed at raising millions of dollars to finance anti-Clinton ads. Thus far, Warfield isn't overly impressed with the efforts. "So far, all this `Stop Her Now' talk has done is give her a nice devil to raise money with," he said. And raise money off that "devil" is just what she is doing. In a fundraising appeal sent out last month, Clinton warned supporters she is "the No. 1 target for the right-wing attack machine" that is "boasting about their `Swift Boat' style ads" to be used against her. On Monday, Clinton reported raising almost $4 million during the first three months of this year. "So just as the right-wing attack machines have started gearing up to defeat me in 2006, we're sending a strong signal that we will be ready to fight back," the former first lady said in an e-mail to supporters. "Republicans still have to get their act together in New York," Warfield said. "There's no obvious candidate right now. An independent expenditure campaign is great, but it has to have a candidate." On that front, Pataki has said he has no interest in being a senator and Rudolph Giuliani's top political aide recently said the former New York City mayor is too busy with business interests to run for office next year. Edward Cox, a Manhattan attorney and son-in-law of the late Richard Nixon, who resigned the presidency in disgrace, is eyeing the Senate race. Some Republican leaders are urging Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro to run. Potentially complicating a Pirro candidacy is her husband's 11 months in federal prison in 2001 on tax fraud charges. While Warfield said he thinks Clinton can be beaten in 2006 in New York with "the right candidate," the GOP operative said that if that doesn't happen he is confident the party can best her in a 2008 presidential race. "I think the world is a lot different post 9-11 than it was during the halcyon period of her husband's time (in the White House)," Warfield said. "Maybe we could tolerate the daily distractions and the soap opera of the Clinton years when things were a lot less serious in the world," he explained. "But facing a situation where America's in a war and our enemies are deadly serious about attacking us, I don't know that Americans have the stomach for the controversies that seem to accompany the Clintons wherever they go."