Forward - February 26, 1999

Hillary's Getting Cold in the Hot Seat

Contrary to the polls, pundits, an popular opinion, Hillary Rodham Clinton is not a sure bet to get elected to the Senate from New York in 2000. In fact, there is no more dangerous place in politics than the position she now holds as the front-runner for an election that will not take place for another 20 months. While the first lady looks like a savior to Democratic Party leaders eager to keep Senator Moynihan's seat in Democratic hands, there is no reason to believe that Mrs. Clinton has what it takes to win the votes of New Yorkers.

According to the latest Marist lnstitute poll, Mrs. Clinton has about a 10% lead over New York City Mayor Giuliani, the likely Republican candidate. Any Republican who can carry New York City, or capture about 45% of the vote in such a Democratic stronghold, should win statewide, since suburban and upstate voters are predominantly Republican, and they account for about two-thirds of the total state electorate. Mr. Giuliani's strength among Jews and white Catholics in the five boroughs and the surrounding Suburbs, as well as his capacity to raise the $20 million needed for a state-wide race, has already pushed potential Democratic challengers such as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, State Comptroller H. Carl McCall and environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr. to the sidelines. With a paucity of well-funded candidates ready to run against Mr. Giuliani, Democratic leader are falling over themselves in their efforts to persuade the first lady to run for the Senate.

Mrs. Clinton's fans believe she has the strength and intellect to go one-on-one with a mayor who thrives on ridiculing his opponents and even his predecessors. In addition, New York feminists believe that they have a "sure winner" on hands. After years of watching women win senatorial and gubernatorial posts in other states, perhaps New York can finally join California, Maine, Washington, Texas and Maryland in sending a woman to the Senate.

Of course, there are liabilities to a Clinton candidacy that have nothing to do with presidential scandal woes. No one could do more to unite the state's fractious Republican sects than Mrs. Clinton. The prospect will compel the Conservative Party to quietly go along with the Republican and Liberal lines. Furthermore, the Independence Party, which provided Charles Schumer with approximately 200,000 votes in his victorious 1998 Senate bid, might also support Mr. Giuliani. And though a card-carrying liberal like Mrs. Clinton would certainly energize New York City voters, her ideological credentials would also have the opposite effect of mobilizing upstate Republicans, who stayed home in 1998, to vote against such a Democratic icon in 2000.

World events may also tint Mrs. Clinton's candidacy. By autumn of 2000, there will certainly be a Palestinian entity of some kind on the West Bank, though likely not a Palestinian state. As a result, Mrs. Clinton's public support of a Palestinian state, though an albatross now, might be less of a burden by next year's election. Yet Mrs. Clinton cannot count on the Jewish vote. Unlike her husband, who has a visceral attachment to Jews and the state of Israel, Mrs. Clinton may get trumped by Mr. Giuliani, a Roman-Catholic who wins two-thirds of the Jewish vote in mayoralty elections. The mayor has a record on taxes, welfare and crime that resonates well with suburban and outer-bough Jews, and he has emerged as the protector of the fervently Orthodox, while also spending more time with Ramaz parents than many of the school's faculty do.

Even among white Catholic voters, the dominant voting block in the state, it's hard to know how a white Protestant like Mrs. Clinton would play. Admittedly, many voters empathize with the pain Mrs. Clinton has absorbed as a loyal spouse, but once she becomes a candidate, Mrs. Clinton's role as a "victim" will be superceded by a new identity: as a protagonist in a contest for the Senate. Mrs. Clinton's credentials as a partner in the Little Rock-based Rose law firm, as chair-woman of the Children's Defense Fund, as first lady of Arkansas and of America can be political liabilities in a heated campaign.

Ironically, Republicans across the country are in the camp most enthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton's candidacy. For them, the real prize in 2000 is control of the House of Representatives, which the Democrats are in striking distance of winning. With Mrs. Clinton running in New York; she will not be able to campaign for Democrats in other states and will be forced to raise money for herself rather than for Democratic candidates elsewhere. Most importantly, she will not have sufficient time to devote to defeating the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who tried to convict her husband.

Mrs. Clinton's biggest challenge is not her ideology but the cultural geography of New York state. The Clintons have never had to campaign hard in New York state. Largely because of Harold Ickes's organizational savvy. President Clinton had New York locked up before the 1992 presidential primary. New York was not a contested state in the 1992 or 1996 presidential campaigns. The Clintons treat New York City as a fund-raising venue, as a place to wine and dine wealthy donors who prefer to spend the night in Bedford rather than in the Lincoln Bedroom.

As a result, Mrs. Clinton doesn't know her way around. there are no "Cliff Notes" to explain that New York is largely a rural state that borders Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Canada. It is not easy to understand the intense upstate hostilities involving Native Americans, the difference between Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway and that the town of North Hempstead is twice as large as the city of Albany, the state capital. Manhattan is not New York state; there are 61 other counties, each with their own political land mines and "hot spots" that cannot be quickly mastered, even for a seasoned pro like the first lady.