In the past few days, an unknown woman named McFarland has been getting a lot of attention (including a front page New York Times story) for declaring her intention to run for the Republican nomination for Senate in New York state. That’s ludicrous on its face. But as ludicrous is the response from the only serious candidate in the Republican primary, former Yonkers mayor John Spencer. He just told the New York Observer’s Ben Smith that he thinks McFarland is a Hillary plant: “The Clintons are pretty slick. They’ll never have any fingerprints on it, but it sure looks that way.The only beneficiary of this is Mrs. Clinton.”

I assure you the Clintons don’t care a whit about what’s happening in the imploded New York state Republican party. I think what’s going on with the McFarland candidacy is very simple: Some political-consultant folks think by putting her up and getting her press, she can raise some anti-Hillary money nationwide that they can then pocket by running a “grassroots” campaign, television ads and direct mail. Significant percentages of the expenditures will go to the consultants. Don’t waste your money on this race. It’s a done deal.