THE NEW YORK TIMES has described Rick Lazio, the 42-year-old Republican congressman running for the Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton, as someone who “looks more like Beaver Cleaver than most other members of Congress.” The paper is not alone in making light of his appearance. The New York Post calls him “boyishly cute,” while the New York Observer has panned him as a “puffed-up putzhead . . . whose only apparent attributes are his telegenic dimples.” Translation: With so little stature, Clinton and her advisers will turn Lazio into roadkill.
But maybe not. Lazio’s first week as Clinton’s opponent was more successful than anyone predicted. His travels throughout the state received glowing coverage, and Republicans (and some Democrats) are citing his “kinder, gentler” brand of politics, and his work ethic, as proof he’s better positioned than Rudolph Giuliani to defeat Clinton. The fact that Clinton’s surrogates, and Clinton herself, began attacking Lazio as a troglodyte as soon as he announced his candidacy on May 20 signals the seriousness with which they view him. Indeed, while a John Zogby poll showed Lazio trailing Clinton by 14 points at the time of his announcement, just five days later another Zogby poll showed the margin had narrowed to two points.
The scenario under which Lazio defeats Clinton is simple. Unlike Giuliani, he unites New York’s Republican and Conservative parties, and with his moderate stand on abortion, gun control, and the environment, he wins over independents in the suburbs of New York City and upstate. While he may not fare as well in the city as Giuliani, that’s partly neutralized by the fact that black voters won’t be as motivated to turn out against him. Finally, polls by Zogby and others show that Clinton never pulls more than 46 percent statewide, no matter who the opponent, and she’s so well known that improvement in her numbers is unlikely.
Yet there is an equally compelling, if not more compelling, scenario under which Clinton wins. To begin with, for every three Republicans in New York state, there are five Democrats. More important, the state is fertile Clinton territory: It gave Bill his widest margin of victory of any state in the 1996 election, 29 points. Next, the Nassau County machine that’s been instrumental in past GOP victories statewide has collapsed (the county legislature has turned Democratic for the first time in decades). As for the unions, they’ll present a united front against Lazio, which would not have been the case with Giuliani. Last, the campaign of George W. Bush has already signaled it’s not going to wage a serious statewide effort in New York, thus depriving Lazio of money and manpower he’s bound to need.
A Clinton adviser cites a few other reasons why Democrats are confident. “New Yorkers value their self identity as the biggest, best, brashest, and brightest, and they tend to elect individuals like Moynihan, D’Amato, and Cuomo who reflect that. Hillary fits that bill. Lazio clearly does not.” The adviser also notes that Lazio, while billing himself as a moderate, has cast a number of votes that could come back to haunt him (he’s zig-zagged on gun control and twice opposed the patients’ bill of rights). The Clinton campaign is also likely to portray him as a tool of the House Republican leadership — he’s a top deputy to Dick Armey — something they couldn’t have done with Giuliani.
Clinton could, however, face a few problems in trying to portray Lazio as a wild-eyed Republican. With his sunny, Boy Scout disposition, he doesn’t fit the caricature. He has also dissented enough from GOP orthodoxy to muddy the waters (the Republican Leadership Council, a moderate GOP group, has been distributing statements made by President Clinton praising Lazio for some of these votes). Given the stature gap between the candidates, if Clinton gets in a fight with Lazio, she risks elevating him to virtually equal standing.
A wild card is each candidate’s paucity of campaign experience. Since his upset victory over House veteran Tom Downey in 1992, Lazio hasn’t faced a really tough race. His decision to hire Republican image-meister Mike Murphy will allay some of the doubts about whether he’s ready for such a high-profile campaign, though House GOP insiders still whisper that he can become easily flustered when under the klieg lights.
The same goes for Clinton. While a campaign veteran, she’s always been in a supporting role. Now, without Giuliani in the race, she will undergo heightened scrutiny on a number of delicate issues, from carpetbagging to cattle futures. And despite her boasts of having visited every one of New York’s 62 counties, most of her “town meetings” have had all the spontaneity of pro-Elian demonstrations in Havana. Nothing her failure so far to make many unscripted appearances — whereas Lazio was a guest on all five of the Sunday-morning talk shows May 21 — Murphy asks, “How can Hillary handle Jesse Helms if she can’t handle Cokie Roberts?”
It’s a fair question, as is another one the Lazio campaign will be asking: “What has Hillary Clinton ever done for the state of New York?” In the end, though, with Giuliani out of the race and Hillary mostly running as a clone of Bill, some believe the contest will boil down to a referendum on Clintonism. Both campaigns say they’ll be perfectly happy with that; but when they say so, the Clinton people sound a tad more confident.
Matthew Rees is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
