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RELATED LINKSInternal LinksProfiles: Alan Keyes External LinksAmerican Conservative Union website Center for the Study of Popular Culture website National Conservative Campaign Fund website Salon.com's report on anti-Hillary day at AEI Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Arthur Finkelstein is Hunting Hillary ClintonLong-time Republican consultant/spin doctor intends to lead the campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton and de-rail her presidential aspirations"Stop Her Now," is the name of the new Web site soon to be launched by Arthur Finkelstein, the chief political guru of New York Governor George Pataki, and one of the country's most successful yet least known political consultants/spin doctors. The "Her" at StopHerNow.com is New York Senator Hillary Clinton. According to the New York Post, Finkelstein, the longtime master of the political attack ad, hopes the site will raise as much as $10 million dollars from Hillary-haters across the nation and provide a gathering point for conservative activists working to defeat Hillary Clinton in next year's Senatorial election. Hillary's defeat would likely de-rail any presidential aspirations she might have. The New York Post's Fredric Dicker has called Finkelstein "a secretive and sometimes controversial national GOP consultant who played a key role in Pataki's defeat of Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1994." The Associated Press' political writer Marc Humbert characterized Finkelstein as being "media-shy." Nearly 10 years ago, CNN's Jonathan Karl wrote of Finkelstein: "He is the stuff of Hollywood: A man who can topple even the most powerful foes, yet so secretive that few have ever seen him." Former New York Senator Alphonse D'Amato maintained that Finkelstein "is probably one of the brightest, cutting-edge political scientists I've ever met." Hating Hillary: A Cottage IndustryThe end of Bill Clinton's presidency coincided with the birth of the political career of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Once she decided to run for the Senate seat from New York, Hillary-bashing replaced Bill-bashing as the right's most popular and financially rewarding activity. In the fall of 2000, when Morton Blackwell established a group called the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton, he sent an e-mail that read in part: "As you know, the establishment media have protected Bill and Hillary Clinton from the worst of their crimes, corruption and cover-ups." To underscore his sense of urgency, Blackwell, who in 1979 founded The Leadership Institute (website), recruited such high-powered right wing luminaries as Edwin Meese III, Ronald Reagan's Attorney General during the Iran/Contra scandal, Lynn Nofziger, longtime Republican Party activist, Oklahoma Republican Congressman Ernest Istook and Alan Keyes, the recently failed Senatorial candidate from Illinois. Blackwell wasn't the only one tilling the anti-Hillary fields. Early in 2000, The Washington, DC-based National Conservative Campaign Fund (NCCF - website) issued a Special Report entitled "Campaign Strategy to Stop Hillary Clinton," which aimed to drive up her negatives, establish a "Defeat Hillary Clinton" Web site, and run a protracted anti-Hillary media campaign. NCCF currently bills itself as "an independent political action committee," with Thomas L. Phillips as Chairman, and D. Jeffrey Hollingsworth, Executive Director. The group's Advisory Board contains a number of veteran right wing activists including Gary Aldrich, L. Brent Bozell III, Floyd Brown, Angela "Bay" Buchanan, Ann Coulter, George Gilder, C. Boyden Gray, Donald P. Hodel, Terrence P. Jeffrey, G. Gordon Liddy, Ralph Reed, Jr., Alfred S. Regnery, William Bradford Reynolds, John K. Singlaub, and Armstrong Williams. Former New York Congressman Gerald Solomon sent out a 92-page paperback book entitled "Hillary Rodham Clinton: What Every American Should Know,"on behalf of The American Conservative Union's "The Hillary Rodham Clinton Voter Alert Campaign." The American Conservative Union (ACU - website), founded in 1964 and headed by David Keene, claims to be "the nations' oldest and largest grassroots conservative organization." According to its website, the ACU's purpose is to effectively communicate and advance the goals and principles of conservatism...capitalism, belief in the doctrine of original intent of the framers of the Constitution, confidence in traditional moral values, and commitment to a strong national defense." In early April 2000, the Washington, DC-based right wing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (website), got in on the action by hosting a conference called "The Legacy and Future of Hillary Rodham Clinton." Co-sponsored by David Horowitz's Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture (website), the event, wrote journalist David Corn, "tilted toward the Hillary-sucks side." And, Christopher Ruddy, the reporter largely responsible for keeping the "Vincent Foster was murdered" story alive in the right wing media, pitched subscriptions to his new publication by offering two premiums -- a special report, Hillary Clinton: The Story the Media Won't Tell, and an audio-tape set, Bill and Hillary's Secrets Revealed. All those efforts may have raised millions of dollars for the organizations involved, but they fell short of their goal as Hillary handily defeated Congressman Rick Lazio to win the Senate seat. Turning to the InternetThat was then and this is now. The fact that George W. Bush is starting his second term and Republicans are in control of the government doesn't lessen the likelihood of another major league hardball campaign against Hillary Clinton. But if the mountains of mud that was flung so enthusiastically in 2000 didn't stick, why do GOP partisans think it will be different this time around? Hillary bashers are counting on a political trifecta consisting of the Internet, lessons learned from the Swift Boat Veterans attack against John Kerry, and the genius of Arthur Finkelstein. "The decision to turn to the Internet is a de facto acknowledgment that the so-called 'tough New York press corps' failed to do its job during Clinton's campaign five years ago, when a whole host of questions about the former first lady's involvement in a number of controversies during the 1990s went unexplored," NewsMax.com, a right wing online news magazine, reported in early February. NewsMax hinted that the campaign against Hillary would do well to learn from the smear campaign against Senator John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (website) which at first was ignored by the mainstream press and succeeded in getting their message out by first using the Internet and talk radio. Finkelstein's Web site launch comes on the heels of his having been fired by the state's Republican Party "in the wake of Republican setbacks in New York in the November elections," AP reported. Pataki, thinking about a possible run for president in 2008, "has said he will personally continue to use" Finkelstein, "but [he] will seek other political advice, too." Who is Arthur Finkelstein? Will his "Stop Her Now" campaign be more successful than the Stop Hillary efforts of 2000? Finkelstein has had a long and colorful political career that has seen him work with some of the most reactionary politicians both at home and abroad. He runs Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates, and during his 30 year career he has worked for former Presidents Reagan and Nixon. In addition to spearheading the then-little known Pataki's 1994 victory over Mario Cuomo, he was also a top adviser to Alfonse D'Amato and Jesse Helms during their Senate careers. But he hasn't always led his clients to victory -- in 1996 he was a major, if well-hidden, consultant to Senator Bob Dole's losing presidential campaign. In addition, Finkelstein was also an early director of Terry Dolan's groundbreaking political operation, the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). Finkelstein is an international player as well. According to AP's Humbert, "Finkelstein has been increasingly active is Israeli politics. He helped Benjamin Netanyahu during his 1996 campaign for prime minister and he is an adviser to the current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon." And, you can add one more element to Finkelstein's reality; he is gay, yet he's worked for a gaggle of gay-bashing Republican Senators including Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C), Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Sen. (Bob) Smith (R-New Hampshire), all of whom voted against legislation banning discrimination against gays while Finkelstein was working for them. Finkelstein is also Jewish, but that didn't stop him from using anti-Semitism during a 1978 South Carolina congressional race between Republican Carroll Campbell and Democrat Max Heller. A 1996 report published by the National Jewish Democratic Council summarized the story: "According to press accounts, Campbell commissioned a poll, conducted by the notorious GOP pollster Arthur Finkelstein, in which voters were asked their views of Campbell, who was described as 'a native South Carolinian,' and Heller, who was described as 'a Jewish immigrant.' The Campbell-Finkelstein poll also asked voters whether they approved or disapproved of U.S. aid to Israel, hardly a significant issue in the campaign except that it injected Heller's religion into the race and implied that, as a Jew, he would favor Israel over the U.S. Then just five days before the election, an independent candidate attacked Heller because Heller did not 'believe in Jesus Christ.' Heller lost by less than 6,000 votes. Years after the election it was revealed that there had been contact between the independent candidate and the Campbell campaign, leading some observers to believe that the independent candidate had entered the race at the behest of the Campbell campaign." His non-political clients have included Time magazine, Scott Paper, McDonalds, Quaker Oats and the Trump Organization. This past summer, Finkelstein was hired by opponents of the new stadium on the West Side of Manhattan being proposed for the New York Jets football team to prepare anti-stadium advertisements. Finkelstein & Associates recently entered into a joint venture with Kidron Strategies to provide consulting services in Israel specifically focusing on the corporate and consumer markets. In a rare interview in December 2004, with Boaz Gaon of Maariv, an Israeli daily newspaper, Finkelstein seemed to be suggesting that things may have shifted too far to the right in the U.S.: "The political centre has disappeared, and the Republican Party has become the party of the Christian right more so than in any other period in modern history" he said. "Bush's strategy secures the power of the American Christian right not only for this term," Finkelstein said. "In fact, it secures its ability to choose the next Republican president." Finkelstein told Maariv that he was troubled by the strategy of dividing the country by "values of religion and culture." "Bush courted the evangelical vote," he said, "and turned these elections, in fact, into a referendum on the religious and cultural nature of America. This is my problem." Finkelstein's comments reflect his concerns that Governor Pataki would have a hard time getting a GOP presidential nomination given the party's current domination by the Christian right. An early February independent poll from the Siena College Research Institute found Hillary Clinton beating either Pataki or former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in a 2006 Senate race. The statewide poll had Clinton leading Pataki, 58 percent to 32 percent, among registered voters and besting Republican Giuliani, 52 percent to 43 percent. The Finkelstein Web site is a clear indication that "Republicans are clearly planning on waging a negative campaign of lies and distortions against Senator Clinton," said Howard Wolfson, an adviser to the former first lady. "New Yorkers will see through it, and we will be prepared." (The Web domains StopHerNow.com and StopHerNow.org are owned by longtime Pataki aide Patrick Donohue, who in late-January abruptly left the Pataki team.) But Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey "has already vowed not to let Sen. Clinton get away with sanitizing her history," NewsMax.com reported. "I have some words of advice for the former first lady," Willey told NewsMax in November. "Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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OTHER LINKSAdam Nagourney G.O.P. Consultant Weds His Male PartnerArthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts. MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root. Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy." Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day. Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration. Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak." Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states." Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency. Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill. |
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