5/22/00 1:35 p.m.
Living La Vida Lazio
An Open Memorandum To The New Candidate.

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

ongratulations on your new candidacy. You looked real good on Saturday — youthful and energetic, with a great crowd around you. Similarly, kudos to managing the Sunday talk-show quint-fecta (is that a word?). Five-for-five!!! That puts you in William Ginsburg territory! At least you had something substantial to share with viewers, unlike the former Lewinsky lawyer. Besides, you need money and doing the Sunday news shows is a great way to get your face and views known to potential supporters across the country. You must have also been pleased that both Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer noted that Hillary has yet to appear on a Sunday gab-fest — not even a relatively friendly "Mom" sit-down with Cokie Roberts. It will be interesting to see how long she manages to avoid the national press.

On the whole, you did an excellent job, confident and aggressive without being obnoxious. Though, honestly, by the time you reached CNN's Late Edition, you did not seem quite as crisp as you had been earlier on ABC's This Week or (in particular) NBC's Meet the Press.

On Meet, you burnished your "moderate" credentials by pointing to your background on housing and the homeless and support for cancer funding, while also reminding viewers of your support for welfare reform. Trumpeting your support for the Brady Bill wouldn't work down South, but it is appropriate for a Republican running for Senate in the Empire State. Besides, Gov. Pataki has launched his own jihad on so-called assault weapons at the state level. It's appropriate that you would be somewhat in, ahem, trigger-lock step with the state GOP's current Alpha Male.

Forgive me for being impolite, however, but seriously reconsider the "Hillary is a liberal" line you unveiled in your Saturday campaign announcement. Is she a "New Democrat" like her husband? No, she's not. But the question you have to ask is: Is calling her "liberal" the best way to go on the attack? Yes, the Hillary forces are already coming at you with the "Gingrich lieutenant" line of assault. That's to be expected. Still, you need a different sort of response.

The "liberal, liberal, liberal" line is the signature tactic of Republican ad-man Arthur Finkelstein (and his local ally, Kieran Mahoney). It worked great in the 1980s and early '90s, but has failed in recent years. It could not even save Finkelstein's principal client — and your Long Island patron — Al D'Amato, in his 1998 Senate re-election run. In that race's ultimate indignity, Chuck Schumer turned around Finkelstein's "too liberal, too long," attacking D'Amato with "too many lies, for too long." Finkelstein's other 1998 client, Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina, also lost re-election with a similar paint-'em-as-liberal approach.

The other side of the Finkelstein strategy is to use cancer as a "positive" issue for Republicans. Again, in 1998, D'Amato became a huge cancer spokesman, wearing the appropriate ribbons and suddenly sponsoring various cancer-research legislation. It didn't help D'Amato. The state party's campaign for George W. Bush in the presidential primary, attacking John McCain for allegedly wanting to "cut" breast- cancer funding is also part of this pattern. It's certainly arguable whether the cancer ads were really a deciding factor in Bush winning the state. In fact, they proved more an embarrassment by the time the primary was over — and helped to contribute to the bad feelings McCain had for Bush until the endorsement two weeks ago.

I'm not saying that your concern on cancer is necessarily indicative of a Finkelstein-directed candidacy. In light of Mayor Giuliani's prostate condition, a case can be made that talking a little about cancer research is actually appropriate in this campaign. Beyond that, the Finkelstein-liberal-cancer strategy will be a loser unless you have something more substantial to augment it.

One thing you can do is select issues that force Hillary Clinton to defend her base — but are also reasonable conservative positions. Fortunately, you don't have the baggage with respect to minority communities that Mayor Giuliani brought into the campaign. Unfairly or otherwise, Giuliani is viewed with considerable hostility by a large cross-section of the New York black community. His reputation in the Hispanic community is not much better. Now, those groups are Democratic constituencies anyway. However, there is no reason to believe that they will necessarily turn out in record numbers to vote against you, as they would have against the mayor.

But don't depend on that negative situation. Use the contacts you have established in working to improve public housing as a way to interact with the black community in a positive manner. Make Hillary realize that you won't take any vote for granted — and she shouldn't either.

An excellent way to do this will be to aggressively push the school "reform" issue. Whether it's vouchers or otherwise, this is a hot-button issue with a natural constituency in the black community. Sit down with Ted Forstmann (who briefly considered getting into the Senate race himself). His Children's Scholarship Fund has demonstrated the "Field of Dreams" principle: "Build it and they will come." Give underprivileged parents the opportunity to get their children into schools that work (private or otherwise) and they will take it. Just this past weekend, CSF awarded another 7,500 scholarships to be used this fall. Mr. Forstmann is determined to make school choice a national issue. It would be a bold step on your part to endorse Forstmann's initiative and push for even more open choice in New York.

Another person you should reach out to in this regard is your former colleague, Rev. Floyd Flake. Flake endorsed Giuliani's mayoral reelection bid in 1997. However, the mayor's handling of recent police shootings turned Flake off. Though still a Democrat, Flake has been a strong advocate of vouchers and has just taken a position helping run Edison Schools, the for-profit education venture. Flake would still likely support Hillary Clinton, but he can provide you with valuable counsel on the school-choice issue and how to work on the issue with minority communities around the state. Yes, you would end up facing the wrath of the teachers' unions, but this is a time to be bold.

As George W. Bush is demonstrating, voters may be prepared to support politicians who are compassionate and boldly innovative. If Hillary Clinton responds to your good-faith effort to reform our school system with a partisan, ideological attack, she may find herself in the same position Al Gore is stuck in on Social Security.

Oh, and speaking of Social Security, don't straddle. Get behind the Bush plan of creating stock-market-connected retirement accounts for younger workers. For one thing, you would be aligning yourself with the views of the Senator you and Mrs. Clinton seek to replace. Along with your support of a partial-birth abortion ban, that would make two issues where you would be more ideologically attuned to Daniel Patrick Moynihan than Hillary Rodham Clinton is.

But an even greater reason for supporting the Bush plan has much to do with New York. Aside from being a good option for younger voters and the growing investor class, more money coming into the stock market is good for Wall Street, which is good for New York. Put Mrs. Clinton into the position of saying that she believes that Wall Street is somehow "evil," or somehow not a New York constituency that she needs to pay attention to. If she is foolish enough to reiterate Al Gore's protestations that Wall Street is too "risky," then you should tell her that real New Yorkers are brave creatures not afraid of a reasonable risk.

Finally, that's the way you raise the residency issue. Talking about your accent won't do it. There are millions of immigrants in the city and state who don't talk with a classic New York accent. This is a place of newcomers. But the people who come here have to know what being a New Yorker is all about. They come here for the risk, the opportunity, and the adventure. They don't come here to "play it safe." To the extent that you internalize this sentiment and run a campaign that implicitly critiques Hillary Rodham Clinton's failure to understand this aspect of the culture of New York, you will do well indeed.

Good luck.