Hillary Watch

CHALLENGE FROM THE RIGHT. It sounds like Sen. Clinton will have yet another challenger within her own party for her Senate seat. Mark Greenstein is a 42-year-old former lawyer turned businessman, and he plans to run against Hillary as the party's conservative alternative. Calling himself a "new Democrat" who will take on "sell-out liberals," Greenstein says that his platform will be all about national security, jobs, health care and ethics in government. He also promises to serve out his full six-year term if elected, and challenged Hillary to make the same pledge. On his website, Greenstein blasts the senator for being "so busy running for President that she has neglected the people and ideals of her constituents." Greenstein joins Jonathan Tasini and Steven Greenfield in challenging the presumptive Democratic nominee, although Tasini and Greenfield both appear to be far to the left of Greenstein. The fact that two of Hillary's challengers have very similar names will probably confuse primary voters, not that any of these three stand a chance of mounting a credible threat to Mrs. Clinton. They are all in the same boat in that they have no money, although Greenstein says he will self-finance his campaign "in the high five figures." Greenstein has never held elective office but does have some campaign experience, having run in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary in 2000, and winning a grand total of 75 votes.

BROKEN PROMISE. Hillary is on the defensive about her economic record, especially her 2000 campaign pledge to produce 200,000 new jobs for upstate New York during her first term. Six years ago, she called the issue of upstate jobs "the most important issue in this race," and her promise seemingly broke open what was a very close race with Rep. Rick Lazio. But truth be told, upstate New York has lost about 35,000 jobs since she took office, which is kind of sad considering that the overall economy has, under President Bush, created nearly five million jobs just since August 2003. Naturally, Hillary has placed the blame elsewhere, mostly on the state government (fair enough) and the Republican-controlled Congress. However, all the latter has done is support pro-business efforts such as cutting taxes, reducing regulations and energy costs, giving small businesses the opportunity to provide health care for their employees and tort reform-most of which Sen. Clinton has opposed, and all of which has contributed to the nation's excellent economic growth. Hillary told an upstate paper that she is "not satisfied" with job "growth" in the area thus far, and that "there's more we need to do." The paper couldn't help listing several projects for which Hillary has brought home the bacon, including "millions of dollars in federal aid for [a] $230 million project-which calls for a performing arts center, bus terminal and community college campus on East Main Street" in Rochester. This taxpayer-subsidized pork is still a pale substitute for sound economic policies that would encourage entrepreneurship and the free-market. One question the media have not asked Hillary is why, if the Clinton economy of the 1990s was so great, was there even the need for Hillary to promise to create all these jobs in the first place?

ANOTHER HARRIS REFUGEE. Kathleen "K.T." McFarland has hired another campaign staffer from Florida Republican Rep. Katherine Harris's struggling Senate campaign. Adam Goodman will now be in charge of her media efforts, joining chief strategist Ed Rollins, another former advisor to Harris, as part of Team McFarland. Goodman was a top political adviser to then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani when he was expected to be the Republican candidate against Fist Lady Clinton in 2000. "This is just like a dream come true," said Goodman. "It's déjà vu all over again." K.T. has been shown in a Quinnipiac poll as beating conservative Republican John Spencer by 13 points, but both candidates fail miserably against Hillary, each losing in the survey by at least 30 points.

Visit the Hillary Watch Blog at humaneventsonline.com/ hillarywatch.php

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Apr 10, 2006
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved