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Arthur J. Finkelstein

January 01, 1970

Arthur Jay Finkelstein (May 18, 1945 – August 18, 2017) was a New York state-based Republican Party (GOP) consultant who worked for conservative and right-wing candidates in the United States, Canada, Israel, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe over four decades.

With his brother, Ronald, Finkelstein ran a political consulting and survey-research firm based in Irvington, New York. His specialties were polling, strategy, message, media, ad placement, and advising on general campaign management.

Early life and education edit

Finkelstein grew up in a lower-middle-class Jewish family, living in Brooklyn's East New York section until age 11, then in Levittown, New York, and later Queens. He and his two brothers attended local public schools; Finkelstein ultimately graduated from Forest Hills High School. Their parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe,[1] and the father worked as a cabdriver[2] and did various jobs in the garment trade. While a student at Columbia University, Finkelstein interviewed and helped produce radio programs for author/philosopher Ayn Rand,[3] and was a volunteer at the New York headquarters of the Draft Goldwater Committee in 1963–64 (the famous "Suite 3505").[1] He eventually earned a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Queens College in 1967.[1][4]

Career edit

1968–76: Buckley, Nixon, Helms, and Reagan edit

In 1968, Finkelstein did behind-the-scenes election analysis for NBC News, part of the network's team working under former Census director Richard M. Scammon and exit-polling pioneer Irwin A. "Bud" Lewis.[4]

In 1969–70, he worked as a computer programmer in the Data Processing department of the New York Stock Exchange at its offices on 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan. During this period, he was a familiar face in Greenwich Village, where he often argued politics from a street-corner soapbox.[1] In his spare time, he aided State Senator John Marchi in his unsuccessful Republican-Conservative campaign for Mayor of New York City in 1969.[5]

F. Clifton White, mastermind of the Draft Goldwater Committee, was Finkelstein's political patron and consulting partner in the early 1970s in the firm, DirAction Services. The young pollster's first electoral success came at age 25 in 1970, with the independent Conservative campaign of James L. Buckley for senator from New York. This was one of several New York statewide contests where he was able to maneuver his clients to victory in three-way scenarios. Buckley won a plurality upset victory over GOP incumbent Charles Goodell and favored Democrat Richard Ottinger. Of that election night, Buckley later wrote, "By 10 pm, ... Finkelstein (my volunteer analyst who called the final results within one-tenth of one percent based on a Sunday-night telephone survey) assured me that I had won."[6] Finkelstein encapsulated Buckley's message in the catchphrase, "Isn't it about time we had a Senator?"[1]

Finkelstein's work in New York led to his serving in 1971-72 as one of several pollsters for President Richard M. Nixon's re-election campaign developing sophisticated demographic analysis.[7]

The 1972 election also saw the first of his three victorious campaigns to elect Jesse Helms as U.S. senator from North Carolina.[8] After the election, Finkelstein worked with Helms political aides Tom Ellis and Carter Wrenn to establish a permanent conservative organization, the National Congressional Club,[9] which lasted until 1995.[10]

Finkelstein and White went their separate ways in the mid-1970s,[5] and he founded his own firm, Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates (often later shortened to AJF & Associates).[1] In the 1976 presidential primaries, White supported Gerald Ford,[11] while Finkelstein worked for Ronald Reagan's insurgent campaign.

He helped Helms's Congressional Club turn around the faltering Reagan effort with a victory in the April North Carolina primary.[3] His work continued in the subsequent Texas primary. "Finkelstein had been a key figure in 1976, when he helped orchestrate Reagan's campaign-saving comeback in North Carolina" which was crucial in Reagan's further political advancement.[12]

At Finkelstein's urging, Reagan made a major issue of the impending Panama Canal Treaties, which Gerald Ford was negotiating and which infuriated conservative voters. (This proved to be Reagan's signature issue throughout the late 1970s.) As Jules Witcover later reported, "Tens of thousands of Wallace voters were gradually cut adrift during his slide [in the primaries] ... and Reagan media man Arthur Finkelstein recruited a Wallaceite from Fort Worth to radio and television spots for Reagan ... It was dynamite."[13] The Associated Press's Mike Robinson wrote Finkelstein was "viewed by many as instrumental in Gov. Reagan's 1976 primary successes in North Carolina and Texas."[14]

1975–80: NCPAC, Senate, and Reagan edit

Passage of the post-Watergate Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) amendments, and the subsequent 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, drastically altered the rules by which Presidential and Congressional contests were waged. Finkelstein was among the first to sense an opportunity, and pioneered the concept and execution of independent expenditure campaigns, which would operate as a third force in an election beyond the control of candidate or party officials.[1]

Beginning in 1975, Finkelstein was the chief strategist behind the most successful IE operation of this period, the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC).[15] Its Executive Director was Finkelstein protégé Terry Dolan. In 1981 New Right activist Richard Viguerie wrote, "NCPAC relies heavily on research and polling, a reflection of one of its founders, conservative pollster Arthur Finkelstein."[16]

In 1978, NCPAC was instrumental in the defeat of Democrats Dick Clark in Iowa and Thomas J. McIntyre in New Hampshire. Both liberal senators were replaced by committed conservatives.[17] NCPAC ran hard-hitting ads for television, radio and newspapers, crafted by Finkelstein. A central idea behind the strategy was to expose the liberal words and actions in Washington of elected officials, usually senators, whose moderate or conservative public image at home was at odds with their actual voting record.[18]

NCPAC hit its peak in 1980, operating IEs in six states, its ads and organizing efforts helping to topple liberal Democrats in Iowa (John Culver), Indiana (Birch Bayh), Idaho (Frank Church) and South Dakota (George McGovern).[19] Less well-known were NCPAC's TV ads in the presidential contest, both negative (one featuring Jimmy Carter in a 1976 debate, another with Edward Kennedy shouting "And no more Jimmy Carter!") and positive (footage of Ronald Reagan speaking on values); Finkelstein concentrated these ad buys in closely contested Southern states (e.g., Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama), all of which switched from Carter to Reagan in 1980.[20]

Finkelstein believed in the usefulness of third forces to help conservatives win elections, but not a conservative third party (a much-discussed option in the mid-1970s). At a February 1977 conference, he told activists, "The development of a third party may very well hurt conservative options in the future by diluting them," warning that traditional and emotional ties to party labels would keep many conservatives in their present parties.[21] He said the Watergate scandal had cost the GOP the one clear advantage it had over the Democrats – the perception by voters that it was the more honest of the two parties. Nevertheless, he counseled against third-party option, saying this would succeed only in drawing conservatives out of both parties, creating a weak satellite party and leaving the major parties more liberal.[22]

Besides NCPAC, Finkelstein found particular success during this period in guiding individual Senate and House campaigns. Reagan backer and political unknown Orrin Hatch won a resounding 56% victory in Utah in 1976 against a three-term Democratic incumbent. In 1978, he was consultant to the successful re-election campaigns of Jesse Helms in North Carolina and Strom Thurmond in South Carolina[23] — the latter being Thurmond's last seriously contested race (he served until 2002, age 100). That same year, Finkelstein shepherded Carroll Campbell to his first win in South Carolina's Greenville-area 4th Congressional District.[8][24]

After a brief interlude early in 1979 as adviser to conservative Congressman Phil Crane,[25] Finkelstein returned as one of the pollsters advising Ronald Reagan's primary campaign.[26] His services were also reportedly sought by the George H. W. Bush campaign.[5]

In 1980, he engineered[27] the improbable Senate victory of Long Island supervisor Alfonse D'Amato over incumbent Jacob Javits, another three-way contest where the Democrat (Congresswoman Liz Holtzman) was favored.[2] He advised the successful campaign of 31-year-old State Senator Don Nickles for U.S. Senate from Oklahoma.[28] Most unlikely was the victory (aided by National Congressional Club allies) of John East in the North Carolina Senate contest;[29] East was a little-known professor who used a wheelchair, recruited for the race by Jesse Helms and elected through the efforts of Ellis, Wrenn, Finkelstein and the Helms organization.[10]

Besides Campbell, House winners included Duncan Hunter in California and Denny Smith in Oregon (both 1980), the latter toppling House Ways and Means Committee chair Al Ullman. Finkelstein also had his share of Senate losses, including two by previous client James Buckley (1976, New York,[30] and 1980, Connecticut),[31] and with Avi Nelson (1978, Massachusetts). Finkelstein was also pollster-strategist for Maryland Congressman Robert Bauman, who narrowly lost his seat after he was charged in DC with homosexual solicitation, one month before the November election.[32]

1980s edit

During the 1980 campaign Finkelstein was a Reagan pollster and had been "aboard the Reagan campaign" since mid-1979.[33] from the early primary days all the way through November. Having ridden (and driven) the Republican wave of 1977–80, he found the 1980s a period of consolidation, helping clients grow their base and win re-election.

In 1981, Finkelstein was one of four pollsters designated to do work on behalf of the Reagan White House, paid by the Republican National Committee. (The others were Richard Wirthlin, Robert Teeter and Tully Plesser).[34] Newsweek reported in 1982 that "each of the President's top three advisers has his own numbers man: "Wirthlin became Edwin Meese's pollster, Teeter became James Baker's and now Finkelstein has become Michael Deaver's."[35]

Throughout Reagan's first term and into the 1984 re-election campaign, Finkelstein advised Deaver, conducting polls and planning events and visuals (e.g. Reagan's trip to France for the 40th anniversary of D-Day). As The Washington Post reported: "For the White House, Finkelstein is more of an idea man than a pollster, specializing in media events such as the president's "spontaneous" drop-ins on disadvantaged individuals and institutions."[36]

He also began dabbling in gubernatorial contests—in New Jersey (1981), for Jim Wallwork (defeated by Tom Kean in the GOP primary);[37] and in New York (1982), for Paul Curran (defeated by Lewis Lehrman for the nomination).[38]

In 1982, Finkelstein client Orrin Hatch sailed to re-election in Utah, while in Florida, banker Connie Mack III won his first campaign for the House.[29][39] But his efforts on behalf of Democrat-turned-Republican Congressman Eugene Atkinson of Pennsylvania ended in defeat,[40] as did the Congressional campaign in Westchester County of John Fossel, chairman of Oppenheimer Funds.[41]

That year, NCPAC (with Finkelstein as pollster-strategist) was successful in only one targeted race (helping to oust Democrat Howard Cannon in Nevada), failed in several others (e.g. Maryland),[42] and thereafter declined in influence. The pitfalls of running IEs and campaigns at the same time were illustrated when NCPAC was sued for running ads in early 1982 against New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan—around the same time as Finkelstein was working for GOP Senate candidate Bruce Caputo.[43]

In 1986, a federal court ruled against NCPAC, and The Washington Post editorialized, "Both NCPAC and the Caputo campaign used the same pollster, Arthur Finkelstein. They could hardly be said to be independent unless the Caputo side of Mr. Finkelstein's brain refrained from communicating with the NCPAC side."[44] (Finkelstein himself was not sued or charged; ironically, Caputo's campaign had imploded after revelations he'd lied about serving in the military, and Moynihan was never seriously challenged.)[45] As late as 1987, Finkelstein was doing surveys for NCPAC (e.g. in New Mexico).[46]

During the early 1980s, Finkelstein became involved in international polling, for groups such as Canada's National Citizens Coalition[47] and (in 1986) the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario after losing their majority in the Ontario Legislature following the 1985 elections.[48]

The 1984 election cycle saw him involved in three pitched battles for the Senate, the most heralded being the challenge of Democratic Governor Jim Hunt to Helms in North Carolina. The Ellis-Wrenn-Finkelstein team used the permanent assets of the National Congressional Club to wage a three-year campaign to undermine Hunt,[10] including a groundbreaking opposition-research and advertising effort that redefined the popular governor as a tax-raising national Democrat.[29] Helms won with 52%, in what was then the most expensive Senate race in history.[49] However, this was the last Helms campaign on which Finkelstein would serve as pollster. Before Helms' 1990 re-election campaign, Finkelstein told the North Carolina team he couldn't work for the Senator any more. According to Carter Wrenn the New Yorker was polite about it, didn't offer a reason and recommended one of his proteges, John McLaughlin, handle the survey and strategy work. At the time, Helms was becoming one of the leading critics of the gay rights movement. "I took it that Arthur wasn't comfortable with Jesse's stand on the social issues," Wrenn said, and chalked it up to Finkelstein's libertarian views.[10]

in November 1984, Finkelstein also found success in New Hampshire, as he aided freshman conservative Sen. Gordon Humphrey[50] in overcoming a tough challenge from long-time Democratic Congressman Norman D'Amours. But in Massachusetts, after winning a contested primary against Elliot Richardson,[51] businessman Ray Shamie lost a close uphill battle to Lt. Gov. John Kerry for the Senate seat vacated by Paul Tsongas.[52] Another client, Congressman Tom Corcoran, failed to dislodge incumbent Charles Percy from the Senate nomination in Illinois, despite tough ads (attributed to Finkelstein) suggesting Percy was personally close to PLO leader Yasser Arafat.[53]

His Congressional clients in 1984 included three New Yorkers – Joseph DioGuardi (who won election in Westchester County),[54] Robert Quinn (who lost in Nassau County)[55] and Serphin Maltese (who lost a close race for Geraldine Ferraro's seat in Queens).[56] He helped guide Bill Cobey to an upset victory for Congress in North Carolina against incumbent Ike Andrews.[57]

In 1985, Finkelstein polled for the gubernatorial campaign of Virginia Attorney General Marshall Coleman, losing the nomination to Wyatt Durrette (who was then defeated by Democrat Gerald Baliles).[58]

Republicans lost their Senate majority in the November 1986 midterm elections. Nevertheless, Finkelstein's leading clients won re-election — Alfonse D'Amato in New York,[59] and Don Nickles in Oklahoma.[60] However, his candidate to succeed John East in North Carolina, David Funderburk, lost his primary,[61] and he fared no better in Ohio, where Congressman Tom Kindness made little headway against incumbent Sen. John Glenn as well as in Illinois, where state legislator Judy Koehler failed to dislodge Senator Alan Dixon.[53] Finkelstein also steered Californian Elton Gallegly to his initial victory for Congress,[62] but failed to push State Sen. Ed Davis to victory in the California U.S. Senate primary.[63]

In 1985–87, Finkelstein was part of the team advising former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick for a possible campaign for the Presidency.[64][65] Kirkpatrick ultimately declined to run.

The Florida Senate contest of 1988 — closest in the country that year — was among Finkelstein's signature efforts.[66] Congressman Connie Mack III won a tougher-than-expected primary, but his campaign did not wait for the results of the early-October Democratic runoff.[67] Finkelstein determined (correctly) that Congressman Buddy MacKay would emerge from the bitter face-off, and began running TV and radio ads re-defining MacKay through his liberal voting record, with the tagline, "Hey Buddy, You're a Liberal."[68] MacKay's primary and runoff campaign had focused on ethics[69] — appropriate for defeating Democrat Bill Gunter, but useless against Mack — and he failed to blunt the ideological attack. Still, the "Hey Buddy" ads were unpopular with the press, and 22 of 23 Florida daily newspapers endorsed MacKay.[70]

Mack continued to press the liberal vs. conservative contrast in debates and ads,[71] closing with endorsements by the highly popular Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, plus footage of MacKay endorsing various tax increases. A slight majority of voters casting ballots on Election Day backed MacKay,[72] but an aggressive GOP absentee-voter program[73] had already banked a margin of tens of thousands of votes,[74] and Mack was elected senator by a total of 34,512 votes out of 4 million cast.[75]

Finkelstein also advised Joe Malone in his campaign against Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy;[76] Malone lost with 34%, but gained enough positive recognition that, in 1990, he was elected Treasurer in the overwhelmingly Democratic state. Another client, Joseph DioGuardi, lost his congressional re-election contest in New York, 48% to 50%, to Nita Lowey.[77] But, in another tight contest decided by absentee voters, Denny Smith won re-election to Congress in Oregon.[78]

1989–94: Focus on New York edit

Brooklyn native Finkelstein had long advised local and state party organizations in New York (e.g., the powerful GOP committees of Westchester,[79] Nassau[80] and Suffolk Counties,[81] then dominant in all three suburban areas).

In 1989, he dove into the contentious world of New York City politics. Rudolph Giuliani's initial candidacy for Mayor was met with a primary challenge by cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder, backed by Sen. D'Amato and guided by Finkelstein.[82] The Giuliani-D'Amato feud had begun in 1988 over the selection of Rudy's successor as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;[83] it colored Republican politics in the Empire State for the next several years. In this first skirmish, Lauder's millions of dollars' worth of hard-hitting advertising failed to prevent Giuliani's winning the GOP nomination. (Giuliani later blamed Lauder's primary ads for his narrow loss to David Dinkins that November.)[84]

A year later, in the disastrous 1990 gubernatorial election, GOP nominee Pierre Rinfret nearly finished in third place (behind Conservative Party of New York State upstart Herbert London). D'Amato, and by extension Finkelstein, assumed dominance over the moribund state party apparatus. Long-time Rensselaer County activist William Powers, a staunch D'Amato ally, was named chairman, and began the rebuilding process.[85] (D'Amato allies had started their own state PAC in 1989, the Committee for New York, in order to aid Republicans independent of the decaying party team.[86])

At this time, the Reaganite Finkelstein was not a fan of the current Administration of George H. W. Bush. In a rare public appearance in February 1991, after the GOP's poor national showing in the November 1990 elections, he reminded a conservative audience that Reagan prospered through unabashed ideological appeals that drew crossover votes from sympathetic Democrats. But Bush and other GOP candidates "kicked that away" in 1990 by raising taxes, sidestepping abortion and other social issues, and soft-pedaling their anti-communism while rooting for Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed. "We are going to have to go back to the things that got us here," Finkelstein said.[87]

Meanwhile, D'Amato faced mounting ethical problems, and these occupied much of Finkelstein's time in 1990 and 1991. Though the New York senator was ultimately cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991,[88] he was the subject of ceaseless negative news stories and editorials.

When CBS's 60 Minutes ran a highly damaging story on D'Amato, Finkelstein produced a response program that refuted many of its charges and misstatements.[89] All the while, D'Amato's aggressive casework program and advocacy for New York interests was emphasized in paid and earned media.[41] Nevertheless, going into his 1992 re-election campaign, D'Amato was shown in surveys to be a near-certain loser to most prospective challengers. The indictment of his brother, Armand D'Amato, on two dozen counts of mail fraud in March 1992 darkened the clouds further.[90]

When the Democrats nominated Attorney General Robert Abrams in September, Finkelstein's polls showed D'Amato down 25 points, just seven weeks before the election.[91] With the huge lead enjoyed by Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton in New York, the Bush-Quayle ticket was a positive drag on D'Amato. As with the Mack-MacKay race in 1988, Finkelstein moved to define Abrams by his liberal positions on issues. Support for a single-payer national health scheme was translated into "a 6% tax on every job in America"—a contention never challenged.[92] His backing for other tax increases was documented and publicized in TV and radio ads, with the tagline, "Bob Abrams: Hopelessly liberal".[1]

The D'Amato campaign was no less bold on the ethics issue, repeating pay-for-play charges made by ex-Rep. Geraldine Ferraro during the Democratic primary, with ads featuring excerpts from the Abrams-Ferraro debate. When news stories late in the campaign revealed the nominee's disallowed business-tax deductions, Finkelstein's closing ad ran: "Bob Abrams never met a tax he didn't like ... except his own."[93] On Election Day 1992, as Bill Clinton was winning New York State by 16 points, D'Amato won re-election by 1.2 points, a margin of 80,794 votes — with a wave of Clinton-D'Amato split-ticket voting[94] in Brooklyn, Queens and Buffalo the deciding factor.

Finkelstein had several other results that day. In North Carolina, he helped the Ellis-Wrenn-Congressional Club team guide businessman and former Democrat Lauch Faircloth to victory over incumbent Sen. Terry Sanford.[10] Don Nickles easily won a third term as senator from Oklahoma. But in Illinois, the candidacy of Rich Williamson failed to defeat Democrat Carol Moseley Braun to replace Sen. Alan Dixon.[2]

D'Amato's comeback win had demonstrated the Republicans' window of opportunity in New York City's outer boroughs, among working-class Catholics[95] and (especially) Jewish voters angered by Democratic leaders' handling of the Crown Heights violence and subsequent incidents.[96]

The senator's ticket-splitting performance had the effect of shielding downticket candidates from the Bush debacle, and Republicans actually made Congressional gains in strong D'Amato areas — e.g., working-class Buffalo (Jack Quinn),[97] and suburban Long Island (Rick Lazio)[98] — while holding the majority in the powerful State Senate, which strengthened the hand of D'Amato, Finkelstein and Powers going into 1993 and 1994.[99]

Giuliani's second Mayoral campaign in 1993 benefited from the resurgent New York GOP. He had made a point of endorsing the Senator for re-election,[100] and D'Amato and Finkelstein did not again back a primary challenger. This time, Giuliani ran a more effective race, riding to victory on a wave of discontent with incumbent David Dinkins, with even stronger turnout among ethnic Catholics and Jewish voters than in 1989, and in the same areas where D'Amato had done well a year earlier.[101]

In New York City in November 1993, Finkelstein and Ronald Lauder also guided to victory a measure limiting the terms of elected city officials.[102] The New York Times called this vote "a terrific defeat for the city's mostly Democratic political establishment, which had fought in court throughout the summer to kill the referendum, only to have the state's highest court order it on the ballot just two weeks [before the election]."[102]

Finkelstein had specialized in federal elections to this point, and it was uncertain how he would adapt to the localized issues and personal style of a gubernatorial contest. Reluctantly at first, and only after considering several alternative candidates, he and D'Amato settled on supporting little-known State Senator George Pataki of Peekskill for Governor in 1994.[103] They guided him through the State Convention in May, and to a smashing 3-to-1 primary victory in September over Nelson Rockefeller's longtime political wheelhorse Richard Rosenbaum.[104]

The main challenge was defining the race against Cuomo. Finkelstein's first ad radiated disappointment and sowed seeds of disbelief: "Desperate candidates do desperate things ... Mario Cuomo could have been senator or President ..."[105] Subsequent spots, often as brief as 10 seconds, highlighted Cuomo-era failures (e.g. snarled traffic and record-high utility rates in Long Island),[106][107] and especially the litany of tax increases over his 12 years. The persistent tagline: "Mario Cuomo: Too liberal for too long."[108]

Pataki introduced himself in ads first as a gentle reformer, then angry in responding to Cuomo attacks, and finally enthusiastic (in excerpts from rally speeches at campaign's close). Cuomo defended his record and played up D'Amato's sponsorship of Pataki's campaign (to the tune of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al"), but had trouble overcoming the anti-incumbent tide.[41] Pataki had a slight lead in public surveys when, on October 24, Giuliani endorsed Cuomo, with attacks on his fellow Republican quickly becoming a staple on evening news programs.[109] Poll numbers fluctuated wildly, with Finkelstein's own tracking survey showing a Cuomo lead ballooning to 13 points within days.[110] It required a swift response. He elected to attack Giuliani's endorsement as a corrupt deal with Cuomo,[111] the ad using headlines citing suspiciously timed New York State grants to the City to suggest the Governor had used taxpayer money to buy the Mayor's backing.[103] Pataki relentlessly pushed this argument in public appearances.[112]

The pendulum swung back, with negative reaction to Giuliani especially strong Upstate and in the Metro North and Long Island suburbs.[113] (GOP protestors even chased the Mayor's plane on an airport tarmac during a statewide flyaround for Cuomo.) Pataki closed the sale with an energetic tour of the state, appearing alone on a WCBS-TV Election Eve program when Cuomo refused a one-on-one debate.[114] The final result: Pataki defeated Cuomo by 4 points. In an historic Republican landslide year, Mario Cuomo was the most prominent Democrat to fall. As Todd Purdum of The New York Times wrote that November, "For good or ill, Mr. Pataki's campaign [wa]s almost entirely a creation of Mr. Finkelstein."[41]

Delaware provided another win for Finkelstein in November 1994, as longtime Senator Bill Roth coasted to victory for his fifth term, 56% to 44%.[115]

1995–98: NRSC, Netanyahu, "Outed", and New York edit

Following Election Day 1994, D'Amato and Finkelstein were handed new challenges and opportunities, as the 14-year incumbent was named by his Senate peers as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), one of the four permanent GOP campaign operations in Washington. They had a tough act to follow—Phil Gramm of Texas had just piloted Republicans to a 7-seat gain and recaptured control of the Senate. For Finkelstein, it was his first bow as an inside player on a Washington campaign committee, his dealings previously being as representative of an individual candidate. Now he and D'Amato were responsible for helping to direct Senate campaigns in 33 states simultaneously.[116]

One of their first moves was to break the cycle of hiring parochial-minded Senate aides to manage the sprawling committee; their choice for Executive Director was John Heubusch (later a top executive with Gateway Computers and head of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation). Other key hires were Jo Anne B. Barnhart as Political Director, and Gordon Hensley as Communications Director.[117] Barnhart was a long-time aide and campaigner for Senator William Roth, and later served as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. All three were singled out by Roll Call newspaper in 1996 as among national "Politics' Fabulous Fifty."[118]

The NRSC faced several challenges beyond their control, many emanating from the two dominant Republicans of 1995-96, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. The Oklahoma City bombing had given President Bill Clinton an opportunity to marginalize his opponents, and slowed the momentum of the reform-minded Republican Congress.[119]

By late 1995, unrelenting Democratic/press attacks, and his own missteps, had turned Gingrich into a pariah through much of the country (2-to-1 unfav-fav ratio in surveys); meanwhile, Dole was running for President, and allowing ambition to overshadow his Senate work. In mid-1996, Dole resigned from the Senate to campaign full-time, but by then he was behind Clinton to stay, and eventually polled less than 41% nationwide.[120]

D'Amato remained personally devoted to Dole, but Finkelstein and the NRSC team urged Republican Senate candidates to cut loose from unpopular national leaders and carve their own individual profiles on issues.[121] D'Amato remained a champion fundraiser and the committee found new legal ways to deliver assistance to Senate campaigns and local parties. The NRSC paid particular attention to blunting the wave of millionaire political unknowns (e.g., Tom Bruggere in Oregon, Elliott Close in South Carolina) recruited that year by the Democrats.[122] It shored up many endangered incumbents, including Bob Smith (New Hampshire), John Warner (Virginia), 75-year-old Jesse Helms (North Carolina) and 94-year-old Strom Thurmond (South Carolina).[123]

On Election Night, as Clinton defeated Dole by nearly 9 points and Gingrich's House Republicans lost a net 8 seats, Senate Republicans won open seats in Alabama, Arkansas and Nebraska, while losing South Dakota. In a poor GOP year, the D'Amato–Finkelstein NRSC had gained a net 2 seats (and narrowly missed another gain in the Max Cleland – Guy Millner race in Georgia).[124]

Finkelstein was not a consultant to the Dole Presidential campaign, despite his closeness to several of its top staffers. But, in the election's waning days, Time magazine reporter Erik Pooley detected the New Yorker's influence on strategy, writing:

For Arthur Finkelstein, this week might have been a vindication: Bob Dole finally started labeling Bill Clinton a "spend-and-tax liberal," using a crude but often effective strategy known as "Finkel-think" by some Dole advisers, because the secretive Republican strategist has been deploying it on behalf of his clients for 20 years ... These days, Finkelstein is exercising a kind of remote control. The Senator's latest brain trust is dominated by "Arthur's Boys" ... And Dole is rushing around the country chanting the Finkelstein mantra. "Liberal! Liberal! Liberal!" he cried in St. Louis, Missouri.[125]

His own statewide clients in 1996 showed a mixed record, with Senator Larry Pressler (South Dakota) and ex-Senator Rudy Boschwitz (Minnesota) both losing, albeit in close races. Bob Smith survived with a 49% plurality win. New Jersey Congressman Dick Zimmer was defeated in his Senate bid against Robert Torricelli.[126]

Earlier in 1996, he also helped Benjamin Netanyahu oust Shimon Peres as Prime Minister of Israel in a close upset.[127] According to The Jerusalem Post, "Finkelstein was largely responsible for the strategy that brought Netanyahu victory in the 1996 general elections."[128]

According to the Times of Israel, "Finkelstein was behind the "Peres will divide Jerusalem" slogan that helped Netanyahu overcome Shimon Peres who had been forecast to sweep to power in the wake of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin the previous November. That election was credited with changing the tone of Israeli campaigns, bringing more American-style, aggressive and negative campaigning to Israel."[129] But his expertise helped in subtler ways as well; biographer Neill Lochery wrote in 2016 that Finkelstein was behind such ideas as dyeing Netanyahu's salt-and-pepper hair gray to give him a more statesmanlike appearance.[130]

Jeff Barak of The Jerusalem Post, a harsh critic of Finkelstein and Netanyahu, called the strategist "the brains behind Netanyahu's first election victory in 1996. Netanyahu's campaign back then, from which he has never wavered, was that you're either for him or an enemy of the people. His campaign slogan at the time, 'Netanyahu is good for the Jews,' encapsulated this. By implication, if you're not for Netanyahu then you're not good for the Jews, and therefore an enemy. And if Netanyahu is good for the Jews, then this also not-so-subtly hints that Netanyahu's bad for the Arabs, regardless of the fact that they are supposedly citizens of equal standing who comprise around 20% of the country's population."[131]

Finkelstein's greatest personal challenge that year came with the August issue of Boston magazine, which revealed his private life as a homosexual;[132] the ostensible excuse for the outing was that several Finkelstein clients had voted against gay-rights measures in Congress, and his work to elect them was therefore inconsistent and/or hypocritical. In September, D'Amato said, "I don't think a person's sexual orientation, his private life — a person's private life should be brought up and I think the question is offensive, it's wrong. He's a wonderful, decent person and whatever his sexual orientation is, that's his business."[127]

Finkelstein's next two years anchored him again in New York, for the simultaneous re-election campaigns of Senator D'Amato and Governor Pataki in 1998. The contests were as different as the candidates themselves, with the calm, earnest Pataki winning high approval ratings and discouraging stronger Democrats from challenging him. New Yorkers' approval of Republican executives was signaled with the landslide re-election of Giuliani as Mayor in November 1997.[133]

Finkelstein crafted a highly positive campaign for Pataki, focusing on fulfillment of promises from 1994 (e.g., tax cuts) and policy innovations (the STAR tax program for seniors[134]) Raising $21 million, Pataki defeated New York City Council President Peter Vallone by 21 percentage points, polling 54.3%, the largest share by a Republican for Governor since Nelson Rockefeller in 1958.[135]

D'Amato was another matter; since his narrow victory in 1992, his profile had grown more partisan Republican in this still-heavily Democratic state. Summoning First Lady Hillary Clinton to testify before his Senate committee in 1995,[136] and aggressive campaigning for Dole in 1996,[137] damaged D'Amato in a state where Bill Clinton crushed the Kansan by nearly 2-to-1 (60% to 31%), doubling his 1992 margin over Bush.[120]

D'Amato's decision to divorce his wife after a long separation[138] and announce his engagement to a young socialite[139] did not help his favorable ratings, while others recalled his mock-Japanese impression of O. J. Simpson case Judge Lance Ito in 1995 (for which he was forced to apologize on the Senate floor).[140]

D'Amato raised a record $26 million for the 1998 campaign, and Finkelstein went to work early shoring up his client's "Senator Pothole" image of close attention to local needs and the problems of individual New Yorkers (as he had done successfully in 1992).[141] State polls showed a swing back to such issues as health care and social concerns, which needed to be addressed. The tagline of these ads: "Al D'Amato Cares, Al D'Amato Makes a Difference, Al D'Amato Gets Things Done."[142]

The Democratic primary was ultimately between Queens politician Geraldine Ferraro and U.S. Representative Charles Schumer of Brooklyn. Finkelstein prepared for both eventualities. When Schumer won by a surprisingly large margin, he immediately began ads that raised questions about the candidate's work ethic. (As Congressman, Schumer had missed an inordinate number of committee meetings.)[143] The unexpected line of attack stymied the Democrat in late September and early October, and despite his weaknesses D'Amato gamely held onto a lead.[144]

All this collapsed in late October, after a remarkable show of hubris and bad judgment at a closed-door meeting with Jewish supporters in Brooklyn.[144] First, D'Amato did a waddling impression of then-obese Democratic U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler.[145] Later in the meeting, he referred to Schumer as a "putzhead" (a mangling of the Yiddish vulgarism "putz"). He later denied using this characterization, during questions from reporters (but was swiftly contradicted by his own supporters, present at the meeting, including Ed Koch).[146] Film of the denial was turned into a Schumer TV ad within days.[147]

Finkelstein's tracking survey the night of D'Amato's "putzhead" comment showed the senator leading Schumer by 10 points with two weeks to go. But the meltdown was quick and decisive, especially among Jewish voters,[148] with Schumer's ads relentlessly driving the message of D'Amato's dishonesty and dislikeability. The Democrat's closing tagline was itself a homage to Finkelstein: "D'Amato: Too many lies for too long." Schumer won, 55% to 44%—a 20-point turnaround.[149]

In other races that year, Senator Lauch Faircloth—who had earlier replaced Finkelstein for his 1998 reelection campaign in North Carolina — brought him back into the fold in the closing weeks of the race. (Faircloth ultimately lost a close contest to Democrat John Edwards.)[150]

Later clients and campaigns, 1999–2017 edit

International edit

In the 2000s, Finkelstein spent more time working overseas than in previous decades, with clients in Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Ukraine and Azerbaijan (the last, in coordination with George Birnbaum.[151]) He continued to consult in Israeli elections, working again for Benjamin Netanyahu in 1999, Ariel Sharon (whom he helped become Prime Minister in 2001[152]), and finally Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beytenu party.[153]

Florida edit

Having twice steered Connie Mack III to Senate victories in 1988 and 1994, Finkelstein was in demand for the 2000 Florida contest upon Mack's retirement. His candidate was 10-term Congressman Bill McCollum, and he helped clear the Republican field early in anticipation of a tough general election against Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson.[154] It was a nail-biter with many echoes of the 1988 Senate campaign, but with a different outcome. As enthusiasm among Republican voters faltered in the final days (after revelations of George W. Bush's 1976 DUI conviction), GOP coattails and McCollum's slim lead disappeared, and Nelson was elected, 51% to 46%.[155]

McCollum ran for the other Florida Senate seat on Democrat Bob Graham's retirement in 2004, but succumbed to eventual Senator Mel Martinez after low fundraising allowed the challenger to overcome his early lead.[156] But McCollum was more successful in 2006, when he was the consensus GOP choice for Attorney General, and defeated Democrat Skip Campbell, 53% to 47%, polling well in a poor year for Republicans.[157]

In 2009 and 2010, Finkelstein helmed McCollum's campaign for Florida Governor, where he was the favorite of the state's GOP Establishment.[158] These plans were upended by the surprise candidacy of wealthy businessman Rick Scott, whose bottomless spending that year ($75 million from his personal coffers) led to a furious contest for the nomination. McCollum fought gamely, but lost the bid to Scott, 44% to 46%, who went on to win election to the Statehouse that November against Democrat Alex Sink.[159]

A 2004 open seat in Florida's 14th Congressional District allowed Finkelstein to help create a political dynasty, as he steered State Rep. Connie Mack IV to a narrow victory in a four-way primary, then general-election wins in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010.[160]

Finkelstein served as strategist for Mack's Senate campaign in 2012;[161] a late entrant in the primary, the Congressman won the GOP nomination with 58%, but was defeated by incumbent Bill Nelson by a million votes in the Obama re-election year.[162] (Mack IV later became a lobbyist, whose clients included the government of Hungary, whose leader Viktor Orbán was a leading Finkelstein client in the 2010s.)[163]

New York edit

Pataki's third gubernatorial campaign, in 2002, provided some fresh challenges to Finkelstein, including a contest for the Conservative Party of New York State nomination, a still-shrinking Republican base, and a strong third-party challenge from millionaire B. Thomas Golisano, running again on the Independence Party line.[164] Finkelstein positioned Pataki as an economic conservative but far more moderate on social and spending issues than in previous campaigns. This shift won the endorsement of influential union leaders such as Dennis Rivera and Randi Weingarten.[165] Pataki enjoyed a 15-point victory, polling 48% to 33% for state Comptroller H. Carl McCall, and 14% for Golisano.[166]

Finkelstein tried to make use of Pataki's likely coattails by helming the campaign of David Cornstein for the state Comptroller slot being vacated by McCall. Cornstein, a successful businessman and Giuliani's appointed chief of Off-Track Betting, brought personal resources and a strong finance team to the table.[167] He was a longtime ally of both the Mayor and Governor, with a City/Long Island base and unusual appeal as a Jewish Republican running as a moderate-conservative.[168] But party regulars instead fell in decisively behind former Upstate Assemblyman John Faso, a onetime legislative leader for the GOP minority, and Cornstein abandoned his run in 2001. (Faso further failed to expand his appeal beyond the limited Republican base, losing with 47% in November 2002; in his subsequent 2006 bid for Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer crushed him, Faso polling just 29%.)[169] In 2017, Cornstein was named U.S. Ambassador to Hungary.

Back in New York in April 2005, Finkelstein announced the organization of Stop Her Now, a 527 committee dedicated to defeating then-Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2006 New York U.S. Senate race. Clinton sailed to an easy re-election, and the PAC was not a factor in the contest.[170]

In the titanic struggle over new stadium construction on Manhattan's West Side, Finkelstein was hired to defeat the proposal by Cablevision, MSG and its allies;[171] they ultimately prevailed, and the new Yankee Stadium was instead built in the Bronx, next to the old ballfield site, opening in 2009. It was the only time that the Finkelstein firm filed disclosure forms as a lobbyist (the filer was Ronald Finkelstein, not Arthur).[172]

Finkelstein advised former Congressman Rick Lazio during his campaign for the 2010 Republican nomination for New York Governor.:[173] Lazio lost the GOP nomination contest to businessman Carl Paladino.

North Carolina edit

Finkelstein continued to partner with Carter Wrenn on Tar Heel State races after the demise of the National Congressional Club.[10] In 2000, former Charlotte mayor (and UNC basketball star) Richard Vinroot sought the Governorship, to succeed the term-limited Democrat Jim Hunt. Vinroot won a contested fight for the GOP nomination,[174] but the drop in Republican-voter enthusiasm in the closing days (noted above in Florida) hurt here as well, and Vinroot was defeated by Mike Easley, 44% to 52%.[155]

In one of Finkelstein's last major races before his death, he worked with Wrenn in 2016 to win a spirited primary fight between two sitting Congressmen – George Holding and Renee Ellmers. Wrenn had helped Ellmers pull one of the shocking House upsets of the 2010 election, but she abandoned the veteran consultant after her swearing-in and allied herself closely with House GOP leaders. In this primary, Wrenn backed Holding (a former US Attorney he'd guided to victory in 2012 and 2014), after a court-ordered redistricting combined the constituencies of the two suburban-Raleigh members. Aided by Wrenn's management and Finkelstein's polling and advice,[10] Holding crushed Ellmers, 53% to 24%, and went on to a 56% re-election in November against Democrat John P. McNeil.[175][176]

Other states and presidential edit

In Delaware, Finkelstein continued as pollster in 2000 to Senator Bill Roth, but the 30-year lawmaker fell to a 56–44% defeat that November to Thomas Carper.[177]

Texas businessman David Dewhurst first approached Finkelstein in 1993 about running for Governor; he advised Dewhurst against challenging George W. Bush, who stormed to victory a year later. In 1998, he shepherded the millionaire to victory for the post of state Land Commissioner,[178] then to two successive wins in 2002 and 2006 for the job of Lieutenant Governor.[179] In 2012, Finkelstein worked against Dewhurst in the U.S. Senate primary, polling for the campaign of former ESPN broadcaster Craig James.[180]

Finkelstein also served as pollster for the 2004 primary challenge by conservative Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Toomey against moderate incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter,[181] pairing with strategist Jon Lerner.[182] Specter averted defeat narrowly only after massive assistance from the NRSC and Bush White House (and then switched parties after the 2008 election); Toomey was elected to Specter's seat in 2010 and 2016.

In 2005, Finkelstein polled for the gubernatorial campaign of Doug Forrester in New Jersey; he was defeated by Jon Corzine.[183]

Connie Mack IV's 2007 marriage to Congresswoman Mary Bono led to Finkelstein's aiding her sharply contested (but successful) California campaign in November 2008, defeating Democrat Julie Bornstein in Obama's triumphant year.[181] Bono finally lost in 2012, after her Riverside County seat was redistricted, falling to Raul Ruiz.[184]

Finkelstein returned to New Hampshire in 2009-10, taking on the insurgent campaign of Bill Binnie for the GOP Senate nomination.[181] Binnie was defeated by former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who went on to election that November.

In May 2011, Finkelstein told an audience in Prague that three presidential candidates had asked him to serve as pollster on their campaign for the 2012 Republican nomination, and he had turned all three down. (He further noted that Ron Paul was not one of those three.)[185]

Campaign style and reviews edit

Finkelstein was known for his hard-edged political campaigns, which often focused on a single message with great repetition. He is credited with helping to make "liberal" a dirty word in the United States during the late 1980s and 1990s through the use of commercial messages such as this, intended to damage the image of Jack Reed:

That's liberal. That's Jack Reed. That's wrong. Call liberal Jack Reed and tell him his record on welfare is just too liberal for you.[186]

While often successful (as with NCPAC's attacks on seemingly moderate Democrats, or the D'Amato and Pataki campaigns in New York), Finkelstein's tactics sometimes backfired – in 1996, his repeated attacks against Minnesota U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (calling him "Embarrassingly liberal. Decades out of touch."[187]) may have helped galvanize Wellstone's liberal grass-roots base. Republican Sen. Rod Grams eventually condemned Finkelstein's negative ads against Wellstone as excessive; however, his client (former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz) came closer that year than any GOP challenger to defeating a Democratic incumbent.[188][circular reference]

Finkelstein refused the notion he engaged in negative campaigning, a phrase he said connotes false accusations: "It just means that you speak about the failings of your opponent as opposed to the virtues of your candidate"—a strategy he called "rejectionist voting"—a formula based on slogans that disparaged adversaries.[1]

Time magazine in October 1996 reported the Liberal-branding strategy was dubbed "Finkel-think" by leading Bob Dole advisers, and the presidential nominee was (belatedly) employing it against President Bill Clinton.[189]

Political scientist Darrell M. West, in 1996 said ". . .He uses a sledgehammer in every race ... I've detected five phrases he uses — ultraliberal, superliberal, embarrassingly liberal, foolishly liberal and unbelievably liberal."[152]

Philip Friedman, a Manhattan consultant who got his start working for Finkelstein's frequent Democratic rival David Garth, described the pollster as "the ultimate sort of Dr. Strangelove, who believes you can largely disregard what the politicians are going to say and do, what the newspapers are going to do, and create a simple and clear and often negative message, which, repeated often enough, can bring you to victory".[41]

Republican strategist Roger Ailes, who worked with Finkelstein on numerous races in the 1980s, described "Art" as "a polling guy with creative talents",[2]

John Fossel, chairman of Oppenheimer Funds, characterized him as "basically sort of a mad scientist". Finkelstein polled in Fossel's unsuccessful Republican Congressional campaign in Westchester County in 1982. "We had a knock-down, drag-out over whether busing was an issue in Westchester. His polls told him it was. I said, 'I don't think it is, but if it is, it isn't to me,' and we didn't use it."[41]

Carter Wrenn, who worked on Republican campaigns for 44 years with Finkelstein in North Carolina, called him "one of the most creative people I have ever worked with ... He is brilliant in terms of analyzing polls and numbers. He has a unique combination of an analytical and creative mind ... This guy's a workaholic. He must work 18 hours a day ... If you need him, he comes."[2]

Tom Ellis, cofounder of the National Congressional Club said "Just knock on his head, and he'll give you an idea."[3]

In 1990, Randall Rothenberg of The New York Times documented the rise of political and other ads intended to create controversy (in and of themselves), as well as to persuade. While Roger Ailes was credited by some as pioneering the tactic, "other Washington political hands give credit to Finkelstein, another Republican consultant, who deployed numerous news-generating commercials in his 1982 work for the National Conservative Political Action Committee."[190]

Finkelstein's early style is described in a scholarly account of a Congressional primary race in Arizona, published in 1979 in the "Quarterly Journal of Speech".[191]

Finkelstein gave advice to political candidates or elected officials to perform the "dance of the honest man", a metaphor for responding to "questions about transparency, honesty, or integrity" by imagining oneself as a typical, honest voter.[192]

Britain's The Daily Telegraph credited Finkelstein with using polling data to pinpoint the division of Jerusalem as an issue over which Israelis would reject a deal with the Palestinians, during the 1996 election in Israel. The newspaper attributed Benjamin Netanyahu's victory in part to Finkelstein's "scare-mongering".[193]

Other businesses edit

Finkelstein's office shared a small building with Diversified Research, a separate but related firm that executes telephone surveys and packages their results for political and business consultants (including some media pollsters).[194] The firm, long based in Irvington, New York, had formerly been located in nearby Mount Kisco.[5]

Finkelstein also had interests in Murphy-Powers Media Inc. (whimsically named for two young campaign-manager proteges),[195] and Multi-Media Services (a media-buying firm helmed for years by Tony Fabrizio).[196]

"Arthur's Kids" edit

Over four decades, Finkelstein was responsible for the early hiring and training of many successful Republican consultants, operatives and managers—collectively called "Arthur's Kids"[197] or "Arthur's Boys"[125]—including Tony Fabrizio, Alex Castellanos, James Hartman, Craig Shirley, George Birnbaum, Beth Myers, Mitch Bainwol, Ari Fleischer,[1] Carter Wrenn, Kieran Mahoney,[198] Zenia Mucha,[199] Jon Lerner,[182] Rick Reed, Patrick Hillmann,[200] Jim Murphy, the pollster brothers John and Jim McLaughlin,[201] Rob Cole,[202] Ron Wright, and Adam Stoll.[164] Others who worked with Finkelstein and have gone on to have successful independent careers include Frank Luntz, Larry Weitzner, Charles R. Black Jr., Roger Stone,[203] Chris Mottola,[125]John Heubusch, Barney Keller, Gordon Hensley,[204] and Gary Maloney.[205]

Personal life edit

In 1996, Boston Magazine outed Finkelstein as a homosexual in a feature story. In April 2005, Finkelstein acknowledged that in December 2004, he had married his partner of forty years in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.[206]

Finkelstein was a self-identified libertarian conservative, and once did polling work for the Free Libertarian Party.[5] In his final years he increasingly distanced himself personally from social conservative elements within the Republican Party while nevertheless still working for many conservative candidates.[206] In a 1979 interview, he denied he was "a hard-core right-winger," but noted there was hardly "a serious conservative over the last 10 years [i.e. 1969-79] whom I haven't been involved with."[5]

Finkelstein died of lung cancer on August 18, 2017, aged 72, in Ipswich, Massachusetts.[207][208] Survivors included his husband, Donald Curiale, of Ipswich and Fort Lauderdale; two daughters, Jennifer Delgado of Danvers, Mass., Molly Finkelstein of Alpharetta, Ga.; two brothers; and a granddaughter Maryn Baird-Kelly.[152]

Quotes edit

  • "A crook always beats a fool." (frequent saying)[209]
    • VARIANT of above: "When you allow people to choose between the corrupt and the stupid, they will go for the corrupt." (Said in reference to a 2003 Israeli campaign)[210][211]
  • "The most overwhelming fact of politics is what people do not know." (frequent saying)[1]
  • "Stupid people say stupid things." (Hebrew language paper Maariv in 1999)
  • "I have been criticized for 20 years for running ideologically arched campaigns. I plead guilty. I will continue to run ideologically arched campaigns as long as there are more conservatives than there are liberals, rather than more Democrats than there are Republicans." (Speech to Conservative Political Action Conference, 1991)[1]
  • Finkelstein insisted he never lied – "I do not slander somebody without proof."[1]
  • "In politics, it's what you perceive to be true that's true, not truth. If I tell you one thing is true, you will believe the second thing is true. A good politician will tell you a few things that are true before he will tell you a few things that are untrue, because you will then believe all the things he has said, true and untrue." (2011 speech in Prague)[1]
  • "The political center has disappeared, and the Republican Party has become the party of the Christian right more so than in any other period in modern history ... Bush's victory not only establishes the power of the American Christian Right in this candidacy, but in fact established its power to elect the next Republican president."[212][211]
  • "From now on, anyone who belongs to the Republican Party will automatically find himself in the same group as the opponents of abortion, and anyone who supports abortion will automatically be labeled a Democrat."[212]
  • "She will put off Democrats from the center. In terms of the Republicans, Hillary Clinton is a wonderful candidate for the presidency." (Maariv, 11/04)[212]
  • "I think I'm the playwright or the director, and not the actor. And the actors need to be onstage, not the director. And I think it's absurd that people who do what I do become as important, as celebrated, as the ones who are running."[152]
  • Speaking to GOP congressional hopefuls in 1978: "If any of you do get elected, and chances are 19-to-1 you won't ... don't run your own campaign; don't let your spouse do it; and don't listen to the nice lady who praises the brilliance of your speech—she probably was the only one in the audience who thought so." He said Proposition 13 (just passed in California) shouldn't be interpreted as "evidence people want services cut. They want taxes cut," and voters aren't sophisticated enough to understand that one leads to the other.[213]
  • He cited the 1965 New York mayoral campaign of John Lindsay, elected because "he promised to cut the budget in half and double the services. Four years later, when it was apparent that he had doubled the budget and cut services; Lindsay said, 'Yes, I made a mistake,' but he was re-elected when he promised to help end the Vietnam War."[213]
  • Said in 1979 that there are three kinds of candidates' wives—the wife "who hates politics and refuses to come out of the house," the wife who is reluctant but "will do what she is asked," and the wife "who wants to be the candidate and loves politics more than her husband does." He put Rosalynn Carter and Arlene (Mrs. Phil) Crane in the last category.[5]
  • After being praised for his winning advice in a Nassau County election: "I'm a hero, but the first time a town clerk loses an election after my figures show him winning, I will be over the hill and a bum."[5]
  • Longtime associate George Birnbaum: "I would always say, 'Arthur, do you realize how much we're changing history?' He would say, 'I don't know how much we're changing history; we're touching history."[1]
  • In 2011, in one of his last public speeches, he said: "I wanted to change the world. I did this. I made it worse."[214]

References edit

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  2. ^ a b c d e Janofsky, Michael (November 5, 1992). "Behind the Victory; D'Amato Strategist Shuns the Spotlight". The. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
  3. ^ a b c (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 15, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ a b Schudel, Matt, "Arthur Finkelstein, quietly influential GOP campaign mastermind, dies at 72", The Washington Post, August 19, 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lynn, Frank, "A Political Pollster for Conservatives", The New York Times, December 16, 1979.
  6. ^ Buckley, James L., If Men Were Angels: A View From the Senate (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1976), p. 25
  7. ^ Evidence of Finkelstein's polling work for Nixon is cited in Catholic Historical Review, Jan 2012 issue, Vol 98, No. 1, "Catholic Cacophony: Richard Nixon, The Church and Welfare Reform", specifically "Letter from Arthur Finkelstein to Robert Marik, December 16, 1971, attached to Memorandum from Roy Morey to John Ehrlichman, September 24, 1971, White House Central Files, Subject File – Religious Matters, Box 18, Folder: RM 3-1 Catholic 1/1/71-12/72, RMNPP"
  8. ^ a b "Get Ready To Rumble". archive.is. Newsweek and The Daily Beast. February 8, 2013. Archived from the original on February 8, 2013.
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  11. ^ Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1993, "OBIT: F. Clifton White; Architect of '64 Goldwater Campaign"
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  30. ^ The New York Times, October 18, 1976
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  39. ^ "A Senator's Quest To Beat Cancer" (PDF). Content.healthaffairs.org. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
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  47. ^ United Press International, January 13, 1983, "Clark's popularity in decline, poll says"
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  54. ^ Feron, James, The New York Times, October 5, 1986, "Abzug and DioGuardi On Road to November"
  55. ^ Lynn, Frank. "A Wealthy Novice Takes On Incumbent Seat in Congress", The New York Times, October 28, 1984.
  56. ^ Maltese campaign press release, October 19, 1984, accessed through PR Newswire
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  58. ^ Sherwood, Tom, "Coleman Poll Shows Voters Favor Him for Va. Governor; Durrette, Parris Dismiss Effect of Survey", The Washington Post, November 15, 1984.
  59. ^ Lynn, Frank, The New York Times, October 20, 1986, "Aggressive Tactics Raise $7.7 million for D'Amato"
  60. ^ Gerstel, Steve, United Press International, April 20, 1986, "Political Notebook"
  61. ^ National Journal, May 3, 1986
  62. ^ Miller, Alan C., "Gallegly Bets on Force of Incumbency", Los Angeles Times, June 6, 1988.
  63. ^ Love, Keith & Balzar, John, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 1985, "Fear of Cranston, Unrest Clouding GOP Convention"
  64. ^ Sneed, Michael et al, Inc Hears That (column), Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1985, p. 12
  65. ^ Edsall, Thomas B., "Kirkpatrick Indicates Interest in White House; Kemp May Suffer if Ex-Envoy Runs", The Washington Post, October 17, 1987.
  66. ^ St. Petersburg Times, November 8, 1987, "Mack brings in some big guns"
  67. ^ Blanton, Donna, Orlando Sentinel, November 9, 1988, "MacKay, Mack Cliffhanger Down to Absentees"
  68. ^ Allen, Kenneth S., St. Petersburg Times, October 30, 1988, "Candidates turn up 'contrast' in TV ads"
  69. ^ Zaldivar, R.A., Paul Anderson & Mark Silva, "Democrats Turn TV Into Senate Title Bout", Miami Herald, September 21, 1988.
  70. ^ Barnes, Robert, "Democrat Battles Tide in Florida", The Washington Post, November 5, 1988.
  71. ^ Dahl, David, St. Petersburg Times, October 31, 1988, "MacKay labors as Mack glides"
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External links edit

  • Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Romanian journalist Cristi Şuţu photo of Finkelstein
  • CEVRO Institut Forum / Arthur Finkelstein (audio only) on YouTube (2011 Lecture in Prague by Finkelstein)
  • Orbán: két napja találkoztam Finkelsteinnel 15-05-15 2015 on YouTube (News report in Hungarian concerning Finkelstein and Viktor Orbán)

January 01, 1970
arthur, finkelstein, this, article, multiple, issues, please, help, improve, discuss, these, issues, talk, page, learn, when, remove, these, template, messages, this, article, have, many, section, headers, please, help, consolidate, article, december, 2021, le. This article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This article may have too many section headers Please help consolidate the article December 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations Please help summarize the quotations Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or excerpts to Wikisource December 2021 This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience Please help by spinning off or relocating any relevant information and removing excessive detail that may be against Wikipedia s inclusion policy December 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message The neutrality of this article is disputed Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met December 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message Learn how and when to remove this template message Arthur Jay Finkelstein May 18 1945 August 18 2017 was a New York state based Republican Party GOP consultant who worked for conservative and right wing candidates in the United States Canada Israel Central Europe and Eastern Europe over four decades With his brother Ronald Finkelstein ran a political consulting and survey research firm based in Irvington New York His specialties were polling strategy message media ad placement and advising on general campaign management Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 2 1 1968 76 Buckley Nixon Helms and Reagan 2 2 1975 80 NCPAC Senate and Reagan 2 3 1980s 2 4 1989 94 Focus on New York 2 5 1995 98 NRSC Netanyahu Outed and New York 3 Later clients and campaigns 1999 2017 3 1 International 3 2 Florida 3 3 New York 3 4 North Carolina 3 5 Other states and presidential 4 Campaign style and reviews 5 Other businesses 6 Arthur s Kids 7 Personal life 8 Quotes 9 References 10 External linksEarly life and education editFinkelstein grew up in a lower middle class Jewish family living in Brooklyn s East New York section until age 11 then in Levittown New York and later Queens He and his two brothers attended local public schools Finkelstein ultimately graduated from Forest Hills High School Their parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe 1 and the father worked as a cabdriver 2 and did various jobs in the garment trade While a student at Columbia University Finkelstein interviewed and helped produce radio programs for author philosopher Ayn Rand 3 and was a volunteer at the New York headquarters of the Draft Goldwater Committee in 1963 64 the famous Suite 3505 1 He eventually earned a bachelor s degree in economics and political science from Queens College in 1967 1 4 Career edit1968 76 Buckley Nixon Helms and Reagan edit In 1968 Finkelstein did behind the scenes election analysis for NBC News part of the network s team working under former Census director Richard M Scammon and exit polling pioneer Irwin A Bud Lewis 4 In 1969 70 he worked as a computer programmer in the Data Processing department of the New York Stock Exchange at its offices on 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan During this period he was a familiar face in Greenwich Village where he often argued politics from a street corner soapbox 1 In his spare time he aided State Senator John Marchi in his unsuccessful Republican Conservative campaign for Mayor of New York City in 1969 5 F Clifton White mastermind of the Draft Goldwater Committee was Finkelstein s political patron and consulting partner in the early 1970s in the firm DirAction Services The young pollster s first electoral success came at age 25 in 1970 with the independent Conservative campaign of James L Buckley for senator from New York This was one of several New York statewide contests where he was able to maneuver his clients to victory in three way scenarios Buckley won a plurality upset victory over GOP incumbent Charles Goodell and favored Democrat Richard Ottinger Of that election night Buckley later wrote By 10 pm Finkelstein my volunteer analyst who called the final results within one tenth of one percent based on a Sunday night telephone survey assured me that I had won 6 Finkelstein encapsulated Buckley s message in the catchphrase Isn t it about time we had a Senator 1 Finkelstein s work in New York led to his serving in 1971 72 as one of several pollsters for President Richard M Nixon s re election campaign developing sophisticated demographic analysis 7 The 1972 election also saw the first of his three victorious campaigns to elect Jesse Helms as U S senator from North Carolina 8 After the election Finkelstein worked with Helms political aides Tom Ellis and Carter Wrenn to establish a permanent conservative organization the National Congressional Club 9 which lasted until 1995 10 Finkelstein and White went their separate ways in the mid 1970s 5 and he founded his own firm Arthur J Finkelstein amp Associates often later shortened to AJF amp Associates 1 In the 1976 presidential primaries White supported Gerald Ford 11 while Finkelstein worked for Ronald Reagan s insurgent campaign He helped Helms s Congressional Club turn around the faltering Reagan effort with a victory in the April North Carolina primary 3 His work continued in the subsequent Texas primary Finkelstein had been a key figure in 1976 when he helped orchestrate Reagan s campaign saving comeback in North Carolina which was crucial in Reagan s further political advancement 12 At Finkelstein s urging Reagan made a major issue of the impending Panama Canal Treaties which Gerald Ford was negotiating and which infuriated conservative voters This proved to be Reagan s signature issue throughout the late 1970s As Jules Witcover later reported Tens of thousands of Wallace voters were gradually cut adrift during his slide in the primaries and Reagan media man Arthur Finkelstein recruited a Wallaceite from Fort Worth to radio and television spots for Reagan It was dynamite 13 The Associated Press s Mike Robinson wrote Finkelstein was viewed by many as instrumental in Gov Reagan s 1976 primary successes in North Carolina and Texas 14 1975 80 NCPAC Senate and Reagan edit Passage of the post Watergate Federal Election Campaign Act FECA amendments and the subsequent 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v Valeo drastically altered the rules by which Presidential and Congressional contests were waged Finkelstein was among the first to sense an opportunity and pioneered the concept and execution of independent expenditure campaigns which would operate as a third force in an election beyond the control of candidate or party officials 1 Beginning in 1975 Finkelstein was the chief strategist behind the most successful IE operation of this period the National Conservative Political Action Committee NCPAC 15 Its Executive Director was Finkelstein protege Terry Dolan In 1981 New Right activist Richard Viguerie wrote NCPAC relies heavily on research and polling a reflection of one of its founders conservative pollster Arthur Finkelstein 16 In 1978 NCPAC was instrumental in the defeat of Democrats Dick Clark in Iowa and Thomas J McIntyre in New Hampshire Both liberal senators were replaced by committed conservatives 17 NCPAC ran hard hitting ads for television radio and newspapers crafted by Finkelstein A central idea behind the strategy was to expose the liberal words and actions in Washington of elected officials usually senators whose moderate or conservative public image at home was at odds with their actual voting record 18 NCPAC hit its peak in 1980 operating IEs in six states its ads and organizing efforts helping to topple liberal Democrats in Iowa John Culver Indiana Birch Bayh Idaho Frank Church and South Dakota George McGovern 19 Less well known were NCPAC s TV ads in the presidential contest both negative one featuring Jimmy Carter in a 1976 debate another with Edward Kennedy shouting And no more Jimmy Carter and positive footage of Ronald Reagan speaking on values Finkelstein concentrated these ad buys in closely contested Southern states e g Mississippi Louisiana Alabama all of which switched from Carter to Reagan in 1980 20 Finkelstein believed in the usefulness of third forces to help conservatives win elections but not a conservative third party a much discussed option in the mid 1970s At a February 1977 conference he told activists The development of a third party may very well hurt conservative options in the future by diluting them warning that traditional and emotional ties to party labels would keep many conservatives in their present parties 21 He said the Watergate scandal had cost the GOP the one clear advantage it had over the Democrats the perception by voters that it was the more honest of the two parties Nevertheless he counseled against third party option saying this would succeed only in drawing conservatives out of both parties creating a weak satellite party and leaving the major parties more liberal 22 Besides NCPAC Finkelstein found particular success during this period in guiding individual Senate and House campaigns Reagan backer and political unknown Orrin Hatch won a resounding 56 victory in Utah in 1976 against a three term Democratic incumbent In 1978 he was consultant to the successful re election campaigns of Jesse Helms in North Carolina and Strom Thurmond in South Carolina 23 the latter being Thurmond s last seriously contested race he served until 2002 age 100 That same year Finkelstein shepherded Carroll Campbell to his first win in South Carolina s Greenville area 4th Congressional District 8 24 After a brief interlude early in 1979 as adviser to conservative Congressman Phil Crane 25 Finkelstein returned as one of the pollsters advising Ronald Reagan s primary campaign 26 His services were also reportedly sought by the George H W Bush campaign 5 In 1980 he engineered 27 the improbable Senate victory of Long Island supervisor Alfonse D Amato over incumbent Jacob Javits another three way contest where the Democrat Congresswoman Liz Holtzman was favored 2 He advised the successful campaign of 31 year old State Senator Don Nickles for U S Senate from Oklahoma 28 Most unlikely was the victory aided by National Congressional Club allies of John East in the North Carolina Senate contest 29 East was a little known professor who used a wheelchair recruited for the race by Jesse Helms and elected through the efforts of Ellis Wrenn Finkelstein and the Helms organization 10 Besides Campbell House winners included Duncan Hunter in California and Denny Smith in Oregon both 1980 the latter toppling House Ways and Means Committee chair Al Ullman Finkelstein also had his share of Senate losses including two by previous client James Buckley 1976 New York 30 and 1980 Connecticut 31 and with Avi Nelson 1978 Massachusetts Finkelstein was also pollster strategist for Maryland Congressman Robert Bauman who narrowly lost his seat after he was charged in DC with homosexual solicitation one month before the November election 32 1980s edit During the 1980 campaign Finkelstein was a Reagan pollster and had been aboard the Reagan campaign since mid 1979 33 from the early primary days all the way through November Having ridden and driven the Republican wave of 1977 80 he found the 1980s a period of consolidation helping clients grow their base and win re election In 1981 Finkelstein was one of four pollsters designated to do work on behalf of the Reagan White House paid by the Republican National Committee The others were Richard Wirthlin Robert Teeter and Tully Plesser 34 Newsweek reported in 1982 that each of the President s top three advisers has his own numbers man Wirthlin became Edwin Meese s pollster Teeter became James Baker s and now Finkelstein has become Michael Deaver s 35 Throughout Reagan s first term and into the 1984 re election campaign Finkelstein advised Deaver conducting polls and planning events and visuals e g Reagan s trip to France for the 40th anniversary of D Day As The Washington Post reported For the White House Finkelstein is more of an idea man than a pollster specializing in media events such as the president s spontaneous drop ins on disadvantaged individuals and institutions 36 He also began dabbling in gubernatorial contests in New Jersey 1981 for Jim Wallwork defeated by Tom Kean in the GOP primary 37 and in New York 1982 for Paul Curran defeated by Lewis Lehrman for the nomination 38 In 1982 Finkelstein client Orrin Hatch sailed to re election in Utah while in Florida banker Connie Mack III won his first campaign for the House 29 39 But his efforts on behalf of Democrat turned Republican Congressman Eugene Atkinson of Pennsylvania ended in defeat 40 as did the Congressional campaign in Westchester County of John Fossel chairman of Oppenheimer Funds 41 That year NCPAC with Finkelstein as pollster strategist was successful in only one targeted race helping to oust Democrat Howard Cannon in Nevada failed in several others e g Maryland 42 and thereafter declined in influence The pitfalls of running IEs and campaigns at the same time were illustrated when NCPAC was sued for running ads in early 1982 against New York Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan around the same time as Finkelstein was working for GOP Senate candidate Bruce Caputo 43 In 1986 a federal court ruled against NCPAC and The Washington Post editorialized Both NCPAC and the Caputo campaign used the same pollster Arthur Finkelstein They could hardly be said to be independent unless the Caputo side of Mr Finkelstein s brain refrained from communicating with the NCPAC side 44 Finkelstein himself was not sued or charged ironically Caputo s campaign had imploded after revelations he d lied about serving in the military and Moynihan was never seriously challenged 45 As late as 1987 Finkelstein was doing surveys for NCPAC e g in New Mexico 46 During the early 1980s Finkelstein became involved in international polling for groups such as Canada s National Citizens Coalition 47 and in 1986 the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario after losing their majority in the Ontario Legislature following the 1985 elections 48 The 1984 election cycle saw him involved in three pitched battles for the Senate the most heralded being the challenge of Democratic Governor Jim Hunt to Helms in North Carolina The Ellis Wrenn Finkelstein team used the permanent assets of the National Congressional Club to wage a three year campaign to undermine Hunt 10 including a groundbreaking opposition research and advertising effort that redefined the popular governor as a tax raising national Democrat 29 Helms won with 52 in what was then the most expensive Senate race in history 49 However this was the last Helms campaign on which Finkelstein would serve as pollster Before Helms 1990 re election campaign Finkelstein told the North Carolina team he couldn t work for the Senator any more According to Carter Wrenn the New Yorker was polite about it didn t offer a reason and recommended one of his proteges John McLaughlin handle the survey and strategy work At the time Helms was becoming one of the leading critics of the gay rights movement I took it that Arthur wasn t comfortable with Jesse s stand on the social issues Wrenn said and chalked it up to Finkelstein s libertarian views 10 in November 1984 Finkelstein also found success in New Hampshire as he aided freshman conservative Sen Gordon Humphrey 50 in overcoming a tough challenge from long time Democratic Congressman Norman D Amours But in Massachusetts after winning a contested primary against Elliot Richardson 51 businessman Ray Shamie lost a close uphill battle to Lt Gov John Kerry for the Senate seat vacated by Paul Tsongas 52 Another client Congressman Tom Corcoran failed to dislodge incumbent Charles Percy from the Senate nomination in Illinois despite tough ads attributed to Finkelstein suggesting Percy was personally close to PLO leader Yasser Arafat 53 His Congressional clients in 1984 included three New Yorkers Joseph DioGuardi who won election in Westchester County 54 Robert Quinn who lost in Nassau County 55 and Serphin Maltese who lost a close race for Geraldine Ferraro s seat in Queens 56 He helped guide Bill Cobey to an upset victory for Congress in North Carolina against incumbent Ike Andrews 57 In 1985 Finkelstein polled for the gubernatorial campaign of Virginia Attorney General Marshall Coleman losing the nomination to Wyatt Durrette who was then defeated by Democrat Gerald Baliles 58 Republicans lost their Senate majority in the November 1986 midterm elections Nevertheless Finkelstein s leading clients won re election Alfonse D Amato in New York 59 and Don Nickles in Oklahoma 60 However his candidate to succeed John East in North Carolina David Funderburk lost his primary 61 and he fared no better in Ohio where Congressman Tom Kindness made little headway against incumbent Sen John Glenn as well as in Illinois where state legislator Judy Koehler failed to dislodge Senator Alan Dixon 53 Finkelstein also steered Californian Elton Gallegly to his initial victory for Congress 62 but failed to push State Sen Ed Davis to victory in the California U S Senate primary 63 In 1985 87 Finkelstein was part of the team advising former U N Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick for a possible campaign for the Presidency 64 65 Kirkpatrick ultimately declined to run The Florida Senate contest of 1988 closest in the country that year was among Finkelstein s signature efforts 66 Congressman Connie Mack III won a tougher than expected primary but his campaign did not wait for the results of the early October Democratic runoff 67 Finkelstein determined correctly that Congressman Buddy MacKay would emerge from the bitter face off and began running TV and radio ads re defining MacKay through his liberal voting record with the tagline Hey Buddy You re a Liberal 68 MacKay s primary and runoff campaign had focused on ethics 69 appropriate for defeating Democrat Bill Gunter but useless against Mack and he failed to blunt the ideological attack Still the Hey Buddy ads were unpopular with the press and 22 of 23 Florida daily newspapers endorsed MacKay 70 Mack continued to press the liberal vs conservative contrast in debates and ads 71 closing with endorsements by the highly popular Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush plus footage of MacKay endorsing various tax increases A slight majority of voters casting ballots on Election Day backed MacKay 72 but an aggressive GOP absentee voter program 73 had already banked a margin of tens of thousands of votes 74 and Mack was elected senator by a total of 34 512 votes out of 4 million cast 75 Finkelstein also advised Joe Malone in his campaign against Massachusetts Sen Edward Kennedy 76 Malone lost with 34 but gained enough positive recognition that in 1990 he was elected Treasurer in the overwhelmingly Democratic state Another client Joseph DioGuardi lost his congressional re election contest in New York 48 to 50 to Nita Lowey 77 But in another tight contest decided by absentee voters Denny Smith won re election to Congress in Oregon 78 1989 94 Focus on New York edit Brooklyn native Finkelstein had long advised local and state party organizations in New York e g the powerful GOP committees of Westchester 79 Nassau 80 and Suffolk Counties 81 then dominant in all three suburban areas In 1989 he dove into the contentious world of New York City politics Rudolph Giuliani s initial candidacy for Mayor was met with a primary challenge by cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder backed by Sen D Amato and guided by Finkelstein 82 The Giuliani D Amato feud had begun in 1988 over the selection of Rudy s successor as U S Attorney for the Southern District of New York 83 it colored Republican politics in the Empire State for the next several years In this first skirmish Lauder s millions of dollars worth of hard hitting advertising failed to prevent Giuliani s winning the GOP nomination Giuliani later blamed Lauder s primary ads for his narrow loss to David Dinkins that November 84 A year later in the disastrous 1990 gubernatorial election GOP nominee Pierre Rinfret nearly finished in third place behind Conservative Party of New York State upstart Herbert London D Amato and by extension Finkelstein assumed dominance over the moribund state party apparatus Long time Rensselaer County activist William Powers a staunch D Amato ally was named chairman and began the rebuilding process 85 D Amato allies had started their own state PAC in 1989 the Committee for New York in order to aid Republicans independent of the decaying party team 86 At this time the Reaganite Finkelstein was not a fan of the current Administration of George H W Bush In a rare public appearance in February 1991 after the GOP s poor national showing in the November 1990 elections he reminded a conservative audience that Reagan prospered through unabashed ideological appeals that drew crossover votes from sympathetic Democrats But Bush and other GOP candidates kicked that away in 1990 by raising taxes sidestepping abortion and other social issues and soft pedaling their anti communism while rooting for Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed We are going to have to go back to the things that got us here Finkelstein said 87 Meanwhile D Amato faced mounting ethical problems and these occupied much of Finkelstein s time in 1990 and 1991 Though the New York senator was ultimately cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 88 he was the subject of ceaseless negative news stories and editorials When CBS s 60 Minutes ran a highly damaging story on D Amato Finkelstein produced a response program that refuted many of its charges and misstatements 89 All the while D Amato s aggressive casework program and advocacy for New York interests was emphasized in paid and earned media 41 Nevertheless going into his 1992 re election campaign D Amato was shown in surveys to be a near certain loser to most prospective challengers The indictment of his brother Armand D Amato on two dozen counts of mail fraud in March 1992 darkened the clouds further 90 When the Democrats nominated Attorney General Robert Abrams in September Finkelstein s polls showed D Amato down 25 points just seven weeks before the election 91 With the huge lead enjoyed by Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton in New York the Bush Quayle ticket was a positive drag on D Amato As with the Mack MacKay race in 1988 Finkelstein moved to define Abrams by his liberal positions on issues Support for a single payer national health scheme was translated into a 6 tax on every job in America a contention never challenged 92 His backing for other tax increases was documented and publicized in TV and radio ads with the tagline Bob Abrams Hopelessly liberal 1 The D Amato campaign was no less bold on the ethics issue repeating pay for play charges made by ex Rep Geraldine Ferraro during the Democratic primary with ads featuring excerpts from the Abrams Ferraro debate When news stories late in the campaign revealed the nominee s disallowed business tax deductions Finkelstein s closing ad ran Bob Abrams never met a tax he didn t like except his own 93 On Election Day 1992 as Bill Clinton was winning New York State by 16 points D Amato won re election by 1 2 points a margin of 80 794 votes with a wave of Clinton D Amato split ticket voting 94 in Brooklyn Queens and Buffalo the deciding factor Finkelstein had several other results that day In North Carolina he helped the Ellis Wrenn Congressional Club team guide businessman and former Democrat Lauch Faircloth to victory over incumbent Sen Terry Sanford 10 Don Nickles easily won a third term as senator from Oklahoma But in Illinois the candidacy of Rich Williamson failed to defeat Democrat Carol Moseley Braun to replace Sen Alan Dixon 2 D Amato s comeback win had demonstrated the Republicans window of opportunity in New York City s outer boroughs among working class Catholics 95 and especially Jewish voters angered by Democratic leaders handling of the Crown Heights violence and subsequent incidents 96 The senator s ticket splitting performance had the effect of shielding downticket candidates from the Bush debacle and Republicans actually made Congressional gains in strong D Amato areas e g working class Buffalo Jack Quinn 97 and suburban Long Island Rick Lazio 98 while holding the majority in the powerful State Senate which strengthened the hand of D Amato Finkelstein and Powers going into 1993 and 1994 99 Giuliani s second Mayoral campaign in 1993 benefited from the resurgent New York GOP He had made a point of endorsing the Senator for re election 100 and D Amato and Finkelstein did not again back a primary challenger This time Giuliani ran a more effective race riding to victory on a wave of discontent with incumbent David Dinkins with even stronger turnout among ethnic Catholics and Jewish voters than in 1989 and in the same areas where D Amato had done well a year earlier 101 In New York City in November 1993 Finkelstein and Ronald Lauder also guided to victory a measure limiting the terms of elected city officials 102 The New York Times called this vote a terrific defeat for the city s mostly Democratic political establishment which had fought in court throughout the summer to kill the referendum only to have the state s highest court order it on the ballot just two weeks before the election 102 Finkelstein had specialized in federal elections to this point and it was uncertain how he would adapt to the localized issues and personal style of a gubernatorial contest Reluctantly at first and only after considering several alternative candidates he and D Amato settled on supporting little known State Senator George Pataki of Peekskill for Governor in 1994 103 They guided him through the State Convention in May and to a smashing 3 to 1 primary victory in September over Nelson Rockefeller s longtime political wheelhorse Richard Rosenbaum 104 The main challenge was defining the race against Cuomo Finkelstein s first ad radiated disappointment and sowed seeds of disbelief Desperate candidates do desperate things Mario Cuomo could have been senator or President 105 Subsequent spots often as brief as 10 seconds highlighted Cuomo era failures e g snarled traffic and record high utility rates in Long Island 106 107 and especially the litany of tax increases over his 12 years The persistent tagline Mario Cuomo Too liberal for too long 108 Pataki introduced himself in ads first as a gentle reformer then angry in responding to Cuomo attacks and finally enthusiastic in excerpts from rally speeches at campaign s close Cuomo defended his record and played up D Amato s sponsorship of Pataki s campaign to the tune of Paul Simon s You Can Call Me Al but had trouble overcoming the anti incumbent tide 41 Pataki had a slight lead in public surveys when on October 24 Giuliani endorsed Cuomo with attacks on his fellow Republican quickly becoming a staple on evening news programs 109 Poll numbers fluctuated wildly with Finkelstein s own tracking survey showing a Cuomo lead ballooning to 13 points within days 110 It required a swift response He elected to attack Giuliani s endorsement as a corrupt deal with Cuomo 111 the ad using headlines citing suspiciously timed New York State grants to the City to suggest the Governor had used taxpayer money to buy the Mayor s backing 103 Pataki relentlessly pushed this argument in public appearances 112 The pendulum swung back with negative reaction to Giuliani especially strong Upstate and in the Metro North and Long Island suburbs 113 GOP protestors even chased the Mayor s plane on an airport tarmac during a statewide flyaround for Cuomo Pataki closed the sale with an energetic tour of the state appearing alone on a WCBS TV Election Eve program when Cuomo refused a one on one debate 114 The final result Pataki defeated Cuomo by 4 points In an historic Republican landslide year Mario Cuomo was the most prominent Democrat to fall As Todd Purdum of The New York Times wrote that November For good or ill Mr Pataki s campaign wa s almost entirely a creation of Mr Finkelstein 41 Delaware provided another win for Finkelstein in November 1994 as longtime Senator Bill Roth coasted to victory for his fifth term 56 to 44 115 1995 98 NRSC Netanyahu Outed and New York edit Following Election Day 1994 D Amato and Finkelstein were handed new challenges and opportunities as the 14 year incumbent was named by his Senate peers as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee NRSC one of the four permanent GOP campaign operations in Washington They had a tough act to follow Phil Gramm of Texas had just piloted Republicans to a 7 seat gain and recaptured control of the Senate For Finkelstein it was his first bow as an inside player on a Washington campaign committee his dealings previously being as representative of an individual candidate Now he and D Amato were responsible for helping to direct Senate campaigns in 33 states simultaneously 116 One of their first moves was to break the cycle of hiring parochial minded Senate aides to manage the sprawling committee their choice for Executive Director was John Heubusch later a top executive with Gateway Computers and head of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Other key hires were Jo Anne B Barnhart as Political Director and Gordon Hensley as Communications Director 117 Barnhart was a long time aide and campaigner for Senator William Roth and later served as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration All three were singled out by Roll Call newspaper in 1996 as among national Politics Fabulous Fifty 118 The NRSC faced several challenges beyond their control many emanating from the two dominant Republicans of 1995 96 House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole The Oklahoma City bombing had given President Bill Clinton an opportunity to marginalize his opponents and slowed the momentum of the reform minded Republican Congress 119 By late 1995 unrelenting Democratic press attacks and his own missteps had turned Gingrich into a pariah through much of the country 2 to 1 unfav fav ratio in surveys meanwhile Dole was running for President and allowing ambition to overshadow his Senate work In mid 1996 Dole resigned from the Senate to campaign full time but by then he was behind Clinton to stay and eventually polled less than 41 nationwide 120 D Amato remained personally devoted to Dole but Finkelstein and the NRSC team urged Republican Senate candidates to cut loose from unpopular national leaders and carve their own individual profiles on issues 121 D Amato remained a champion fundraiser and the committee found new legal ways to deliver assistance to Senate campaigns and local parties The NRSC paid particular attention to blunting the wave of millionaire political unknowns e g Tom Bruggere in Oregon Elliott Close in South Carolina recruited that year by the Democrats 122 It shored up many endangered incumbents including Bob Smith New Hampshire John Warner Virginia 75 year old Jesse Helms North Carolina and 94 year old Strom Thurmond South Carolina 123 On Election Night as Clinton defeated Dole by nearly 9 points and Gingrich s House Republicans lost a net 8 seats Senate Republicans won open seats in Alabama Arkansas and Nebraska while losing South Dakota In a poor GOP year the D Amato Finkelstein NRSC had gained a net 2 seats and narrowly missed another gain in the Max Cleland Guy Millner race in Georgia 124 Finkelstein was not a consultant to the Dole Presidential campaign despite his closeness to several of its top staffers But in the election s waning days Time magazine reporter Erik Pooley detected the New Yorker s influence on strategy writing For Arthur Finkelstein this week might have been a vindication Bob Dole finally started labeling Bill Clinton a spend and tax liberal using a crude but often effective strategy known as Finkel think by some Dole advisers because the secretive Republican strategist has been deploying it on behalf of his clients for 20 years These days Finkelstein is exercising a kind of remote control The Senator s latest brain trust is dominated by Arthur s Boys And Dole is rushing around the country chanting the Finkelstein mantra Liberal Liberal Liberal he cried in St Louis Missouri 125 His own statewide clients in 1996 showed a mixed record with Senator Larry Pressler South Dakota and ex Senator Rudy Boschwitz Minnesota both losing albeit in close races Bob Smith survived with a 49 plurality win New Jersey Congressman Dick Zimmer was defeated in his Senate bid against Robert Torricelli 126 Earlier in 1996 he also helped Benjamin Netanyahu oust Shimon Peres as Prime Minister of Israel in a close upset 127 According to The Jerusalem Post Finkelstein was largely responsible for the strategy that brought Netanyahu victory in the 1996 general elections 128 According to the Times of Israel Finkelstein was behind the Peres will divide Jerusalem slogan that helped Netanyahu overcome Shimon Peres who had been forecast to sweep to power in the wake of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin the previous November That election was credited with changing the tone of Israeli campaigns bringing more American style aggressive and negative campaigning to Israel 129 But his expertise helped in subtler ways as well biographer Neill Lochery wrote in 2016 that Finkelstein was behind such ideas as dyeing Netanyahu s salt and pepper hair gray to give him a more statesmanlike appearance 130 Jeff Barak of The Jerusalem Post a harsh critic of Finkelstein and Netanyahu called the strategist the brains behind Netanyahu s first election victory in 1996 Netanyahu s campaign back then from which he has never wavered was that you re either for him or an enemy of the people His campaign slogan at the time Netanyahu is good for the Jews encapsulated this By implication if you re not for Netanyahu then you re not good for the Jews and therefore an enemy And if Netanyahu is good for the Jews then this also not so subtly hints that Netanyahu s bad for the Arabs regardless of the fact that they are supposedly citizens of equal standing who comprise around 20 of the country s population 131 Finkelstein s greatest personal challenge that year came with the August issue of Boston magazine which revealed his private life as a homosexual 132 the ostensible excuse for the outing was that several Finkelstein clients had voted against gay rights measures in Congress and his work to elect them was therefore inconsistent and or hypocritical In September D Amato said I don t think a person s sexual orientation his private life a person s private life should be brought up and I think the question is offensive it s wrong He s a wonderful decent person and whatever his sexual orientation is that s his business 127 Finkelstein s next two years anchored him again in New York for the simultaneous re election campaigns of Senator D Amato and Governor Pataki in 1998 The contests were as different as the candidates themselves with the calm earnest Pataki winning high approval ratings and discouraging stronger Democrats from challenging him New Yorkers approval of Republican executives was signaled with the landslide re election of Giuliani as Mayor in November 1997 133 Finkelstein crafted a highly positive campaign for Pataki focusing on fulfillment of promises from 1994 e g tax cuts and policy innovations the STAR tax program for seniors 134 Raising 21 million Pataki defeated New York City Council President Peter Vallone by 21 percentage points polling 54 3 the largest share by a Republican for Governor since Nelson Rockefeller in 1958 135 D Amato was another matter since his narrow victory in 1992 his profile had grown more partisan Republican in this still heavily Democratic state Summoning First Lady Hillary Clinton to testify before his Senate committee in 1995 136 and aggressive campaigning for Dole in 1996 137 damaged D Amato in a state where Bill Clinton crushed the Kansan by nearly 2 to 1 60 to 31 doubling his 1992 margin over Bush 120 D Amato s decision to divorce his wife after a long separation 138 and announce his engagement to a young socialite 139 did not help his favorable ratings while others recalled his mock Japanese impression of O J Simpson case Judge Lance Ito in 1995 for which he was forced to apologize on the Senate floor 140 D Amato raised a record 26 million for the 1998 campaign and Finkelstein went to work early shoring up his client s Senator Pothole image of close attention to local needs and the problems of individual New Yorkers as he had done successfully in 1992 141 State polls showed a swing back to such issues as health care and social concerns which needed to be addressed The tagline of these ads Al D Amato Cares Al D Amato Makes a Difference Al D Amato Gets Things Done 142 The Democratic primary was ultimately between Queens politician Geraldine Ferraro and U S Representative Charles Schumer of Brooklyn Finkelstein prepared for both eventualities When Schumer won by a surprisingly large margin he immediately began ads that raised questions about the candidate s work ethic As Congressman Schumer had missed an inordinate number of committee meetings 143 The unexpected line of attack stymied the Democrat in late September and early October and despite his weaknesses D Amato gamely held onto a lead 144 All this collapsed in late October after a remarkable show of hubris and bad judgment at a closed door meeting with Jewish supporters in Brooklyn 144 First D Amato did a waddling impression of then obese Democratic U S Rep Jerrold Nadler 145 Later in the meeting he referred to Schumer as a putzhead a mangling of the Yiddish vulgarism putz He later denied using this characterization during questions from reporters but was swiftly contradicted by his own supporters present at the meeting including Ed Koch 146 Film of the denial was turned into a Schumer TV ad within days 147 Finkelstein s tracking survey the night of D Amato s putzhead comment showed the senator leading Schumer by 10 points with two weeks to go But the meltdown was quick and decisive especially among Jewish voters 148 with Schumer s ads relentlessly driving the message of D Amato s dishonesty and dislikeability The Democrat s closing tagline was itself a homage to Finkelstein D Amato Too many lies for too long Schumer won 55 to 44 a 20 point turnaround 149 In other races that year Senator Lauch Faircloth who had earlier replaced Finkelstein for his 1998 reelection campaign in North Carolina brought him back into the fold in the closing weeks of the race Faircloth ultimately lost a close contest to Democrat John Edwards 150 Later clients and campaigns 1999 2017 editInternational edit In the 2000s Finkelstein spent more time working overseas than in previous decades with clients in Albania Austria Bulgaria the Czech Republic Hungary Kosovo Ukraine and Azerbaijan the last in coordination with George Birnbaum 151 He continued to consult in Israeli elections working again for Benjamin Netanyahu in 1999 Ariel Sharon whom he helped become Prime Minister in 2001 152 and finally Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beytenu party 153 Florida edit Having twice steered Connie Mack III to Senate victories in 1988 and 1994 Finkelstein was in demand for the 2000 Florida contest upon Mack s retirement His candidate was 10 term Congressman Bill McCollum and he helped clear the Republican field early in anticipation of a tough general election against Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson 154 It was a nail biter with many echoes of the 1988 Senate campaign but with a different outcome As enthusiasm among Republican voters faltered in the final days after revelations of George W Bush s 1976 DUI conviction GOP coattails and McCollum s slim lead disappeared and Nelson was elected 51 to 46 155 McCollum ran for the other Florida Senate seat on Democrat Bob Graham s retirement in 2004 but succumbed to eventual Senator Mel Martinez after low fundraising allowed the challenger to overcome his early lead 156 But McCollum was more successful in 2006 when he was the consensus GOP choice for Attorney General and defeated Democrat Skip Campbell 53 to 47 polling well in a poor year for Republicans 157 In 2009 and 2010 Finkelstein helmed McCollum s campaign for Florida Governor where he was the favorite of the state s GOP Establishment 158 These plans were upended by the surprise candidacy of wealthy businessman Rick Scott whose bottomless spending that year 75 million from his personal coffers led to a furious contest for the nomination McCollum fought gamely but lost the bid to Scott 44 to 46 who went on to win election to the Statehouse that November against Democrat Alex Sink 159 A 2004 open seat in Florida s 14th Congressional District allowed Finkelstein to help create a political dynasty as he steered State Rep Connie Mack IV to a narrow victory in a four way primary then general election wins in 2004 2006 2008 and 2010 160 Finkelstein served as strategist for Mack s Senate campaign in 2012 161 a late entrant in the primary the Congressman won the GOP nomination with 58 but was defeated by incumbent Bill Nelson by a million votes in the Obama re election year 162 Mack IV later became a lobbyist whose clients included the government of Hungary whose leader Viktor Orban was a leading Finkelstein client in the 2010s 163 New York edit Pataki s third gubernatorial campaign in 2002 provided some fresh challenges to Finkelstein including a contest for the Conservative Party of New York State nomination a still shrinking Republican base and a strong third party challenge from millionaire B Thomas Golisano running again on the Independence Party line 164 Finkelstein positioned Pataki as an economic conservative but far more moderate on social and spending issues than in previous campaigns This shift won the endorsement of influential union leaders such as Dennis Rivera and Randi Weingarten 165 Pataki enjoyed a 15 point victory polling 48 to 33 for state Comptroller H Carl McCall and 14 for Golisano 166 Finkelstein tried to make use of Pataki s likely coattails by helming the campaign of David Cornstein for the state Comptroller slot being vacated by McCall Cornstein a successful businessman and Giuliani s appointed chief of Off Track Betting brought personal resources and a strong finance team to the table 167 He was a longtime ally of both the Mayor and Governor with a City Long Island base and unusual appeal as a Jewish Republican running as a moderate conservative 168 But party regulars instead fell in decisively behind former Upstate Assemblyman John Faso a onetime legislative leader for the GOP minority and Cornstein abandoned his run in 2001 Faso further failed to expand his appeal beyond the limited Republican base losing with 47 in November 2002 in his subsequent 2006 bid for Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer crushed him Faso polling just 29 169 In 2017 Cornstein was named U S Ambassador to Hungary Back in New York in April 2005 Finkelstein announced the organization of Stop Her Now a 527 committee dedicated to defeating then Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2006 New York U S Senate race Clinton sailed to an easy re election and the PAC was not a factor in the contest 170 In the titanic struggle over new stadium construction on Manhattan s West Side Finkelstein was hired to defeat the proposal by Cablevision MSG and its allies 171 they ultimately prevailed and the new Yankee Stadium was instead built in the Bronx next to the old ballfield site opening in 2009 It was the only time that the Finkelstein firm filed disclosure forms as a lobbyist the filer was Ronald Finkelstein not Arthur 172 Finkelstein advised former Congressman Rick Lazio during his campaign for the 2010 Republican nomination for New York Governor 173 Lazio lost the GOP nomination contest to businessman Carl Paladino North Carolina edit Finkelstein continued to partner with Carter Wrenn on Tar Heel State races after the demise of the National Congressional Club 10 In 2000 former Charlotte mayor and UNC basketball star Richard Vinroot sought the Governorship to succeed the term limited Democrat Jim Hunt Vinroot won a contested fight for the GOP nomination 174 but the drop in Republican voter enthusiasm in the closing days noted above in Florida hurt here as well and Vinroot was defeated by Mike Easley 44 to 52 155 In one of Finkelstein s last major races before his death he worked with Wrenn in 2016 to win a spirited primary fight between two sitting Congressmen George Holding and Renee Ellmers Wrenn had helped Ellmers pull one of the shocking House upsets of the 2010 election but she abandoned the veteran consultant after her swearing in and allied herself closely with House GOP leaders In this primary Wrenn backed Holding a former US Attorney he d guided to victory in 2012 and 2014 after a court ordered redistricting combined the constituencies of the two suburban Raleigh members Aided by Wrenn s management and Finkelstein s polling and advice 10 Holding crushed Ellmers 53 to 24 and went on to a 56 re election in November against Democrat John P McNeil 175 176 Other states and presidential edit In Delaware Finkelstein continued as pollster in 2000 to Senator Bill Roth but the 30 year lawmaker fell to a 56 44 defeat that November to Thomas Carper 177 Texas businessman David Dewhurst first approached Finkelstein in 1993 about running for Governor he advised Dewhurst against challenging George W Bush who stormed to victory a year later In 1998 he shepherded the millionaire to victory for the post of state Land Commissioner 178 then to two successive wins in 2002 and 2006 for the job of Lieutenant Governor 179 In 2012 Finkelstein worked against Dewhurst in the U S Senate primary polling for the campaign of former ESPN broadcaster Craig James 180 Finkelstein also served as pollster for the 2004 primary challenge by conservative Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Toomey against moderate incumbent Sen Arlen Specter 181 pairing with strategist Jon Lerner 182 Specter averted defeat narrowly only after massive assistance from the NRSC and Bush White House and then switched parties after the 2008 election Toomey was elected to Specter s seat in 2010 and 2016 In 2005 Finkelstein polled for the gubernatorial campaign of Doug Forrester in New Jersey he was defeated by Jon Corzine 183 Connie Mack IV s 2007 marriage to Congresswoman Mary Bono led to Finkelstein s aiding her sharply contested but successful California campaign in November 2008 defeating Democrat Julie Bornstein in Obama s triumphant year 181 Bono finally lost in 2012 after her Riverside County seat was redistricted falling to Raul Ruiz 184 Finkelstein returned to New Hampshire in 2009 10 taking on the insurgent campaign of Bill Binnie for the GOP Senate nomination 181 Binnie was defeated by former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte who went on to election that November In May 2011 Finkelstein told an audience in Prague that three presidential candidates had asked him to serve as pollster on their campaign for the 2012 Republican nomination and he had turned all three down He further noted that Ron Paul was not one of those three 185 Campaign style and reviews editFinkelstein was known for his hard edged political campaigns which often focused on a single message with great repetition He is credited with helping to make liberal a dirty word in the United States during the late 1980s and 1990s through the use of commercial messages such as this intended to damage the image of Jack Reed That s liberal That s Jack Reed That s wrong Call liberal Jack Reed and tell him his record on welfare is just too liberal for you 186 While often successful as with NCPAC s attacks on seemingly moderate Democrats or the D Amato and Pataki campaigns in New York Finkelstein s tactics sometimes backfired in 1996 his repeated attacks against Minnesota U S Senator Paul Wellstone calling him Embarrassingly liberal Decades out of touch 187 may have helped galvanize Wellstone s liberal grass roots base Republican Sen Rod Grams eventually condemned Finkelstein s negative ads against Wellstone as excessive however his client former Sen Rudy Boschwitz came closer that year than any GOP challenger to defeating a Democratic incumbent 188 circular reference Finkelstein refused the notion he engaged in negative campaigning a phrase he said connotes false accusations It just means that you speak about the failings of your opponent as opposed to the virtues of your candidate a strategy he called rejectionist voting a formula based on slogans that disparaged adversaries 1 Time magazine in October 1996 reported the Liberal branding strategy was dubbed Finkel think by leading Bob Dole advisers and the presidential nominee was belatedly employing it against President Bill Clinton 189 Political scientist Darrell M West in 1996 said He uses a sledgehammer in every race I ve detected five phrases he uses ultraliberal superliberal embarrassingly liberal foolishly liberal and unbelievably liberal 152 Philip Friedman a Manhattan consultant who got his start working for Finkelstein s frequent Democratic rival David Garth described the pollster as the ultimate sort of Dr Strangelove who believes you can largely disregard what the politicians are going to say and do what the newspapers are going to do and create a simple and clear and often negative message which repeated often enough can bring you to victory 41 Republican strategist Roger Ailes who worked with Finkelstein on numerous races in the 1980s described Art as a polling guy with creative talents 2 John Fossel chairman of Oppenheimer Funds characterized him as basically sort of a mad scientist Finkelstein polled in Fossel s unsuccessful Republican Congressional campaign in Westchester County in 1982 We had a knock down drag out over whether busing was an issue in Westchester His polls told him it was I said I don t think it is but if it is it isn t to me and we didn t use it 41 Carter Wrenn who worked on Republican campaigns for 44 years with Finkelstein in North Carolina called him one of the most creative people I have ever worked with He is brilliant in terms of analyzing polls and numbers He has a unique combination of an analytical and creative mind This guy s a workaholic He must work 18 hours a day If you need him he comes 2 Tom Ellis cofounder of the National Congressional Club said Just knock on his head and he ll give you an idea 3 In 1990 Randall Rothenberg of The New York Times documented the rise of political and other ads intended to create controversy in and of themselves as well as to persuade While Roger Ailes was credited by some as pioneering the tactic other Washington political hands give credit to Finkelstein another Republican consultant who deployed numerous news generating commercials in his 1982 work for the National Conservative Political Action Committee 190 Finkelstein s early style is described in a scholarly account of a Congressional primary race in Arizona published in 1979 in the Quarterly Journal of Speech 191 Finkelstein gave advice to political candidates or elected officials to perform the dance of the honest man a metaphor for responding to questions about transparency honesty or integrity by imagining oneself as a typical honest voter 192 Britain s The Daily Telegraph credited Finkelstein with using polling data to pinpoint the division of Jerusalem as an issue over which Israelis would reject a deal with the Palestinians during the 1996 election in Israel The newspaper attributed Benjamin Netanyahu s victory in part to Finkelstein s scare mongering 193 Other businesses editFinkelstein s office shared a small building with Diversified Research a separate but related firm that executes telephone surveys and packages their results for political and business consultants including some media pollsters 194 The firm long based in Irvington New York had formerly been located in nearby Mount Kisco 5 Finkelstein also had interests in Murphy Powers Media Inc whimsically named for two young campaign manager proteges 195 and Multi Media Services a media buying firm helmed for years by Tony Fabrizio 196 Arthur s Kids editOver four decades Finkelstein was responsible for the early hiring and training of many successful Republican consultants operatives and managers collectively called Arthur s Kids 197 or Arthur s Boys 125 including Tony Fabrizio Alex Castellanos James Hartman Craig Shirley George Birnbaum Beth Myers Mitch Bainwol Ari Fleischer 1 Carter Wrenn Kieran Mahoney 198 Zenia Mucha 199 Jon Lerner 182 Rick Reed Patrick Hillmann 200 Jim Murphy the pollster brothers John and Jim McLaughlin 201 Rob Cole 202 Ron Wright and Adam Stoll 164 Others who worked with Finkelstein and have gone on to have successful independent careers include Frank Luntz Larry Weitzner Charles R Black Jr Roger Stone 203 Chris Mottola 125 John Heubusch Barney Keller Gordon Hensley 204 and Gary Maloney 205 Personal life editIn 1996 Boston Magazine outed Finkelstein as a homosexual in a feature story In April 2005 Finkelstein acknowledged that in December 2004 he had married his partner of forty years in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts 206 Finkelstein was a self identified libertarian conservative and once did polling work for the Free Libertarian Party 5 In his final years he increasingly distanced himself personally from social conservative elements within the Republican Party while nevertheless still working for many conservative candidates 206 In a 1979 interview he denied he was a hard core right winger but noted there was hardly a serious conservative over the last 10 years i e 1969 79 whom I haven t been involved with 5 Finkelstein died of lung cancer on August 18 2017 aged 72 in Ipswich Massachusetts 207 208 Survivors included his husband Donald Curiale of Ipswich and Fort Lauderdale two daughters Jennifer Delgado of Danvers Mass Molly Finkelstein of Alpharetta Ga two brothers and a granddaughter Maryn Baird Kelly 152 Quotes edit A crook always beats a fool frequent saying 209 VARIANT of above When you allow people to choose between the corrupt and the stupid they will go for the corrupt Said in reference to a 2003 Israeli campaign 210 211 The most overwhelming fact of politics is what people do not know frequent saying 1 Stupid people say stupid things Hebrew language paper Maariv in 1999 I have been criticized for 20 years for running ideologically arched campaigns I plead guilty I will continue to run ideologically arched campaigns as long as there are more conservatives than there are liberals rather than more Democrats than there are Republicans Speech to Conservative Political Action Conference 1991 1 Finkelstein insisted he never lied I do not slander somebody without proof 1 In politics it s what you perceive to be true that s true not truth If I tell you one thing is true you will believe the second thing is true A good politician will tell you a few things that are true before he will tell you a few things that are untrue because you will then believe all the things he has said true and untrue 2011 speech in Prague 1 The political center has disappeared and the Republican Party has become the party of the Christian right more so than in any other period in modern history Bush s victory not only establishes the power of the American Christian Right in this candidacy but in fact established its power to elect the next Republican president 212 211 From now on anyone who belongs to the Republican Party will automatically find himself in the same group as the opponents of abortion and anyone who supports abortion will automatically be labeled a Democrat 212 She will put off Democrats from the center In terms of the Republicans Hillary Clinton is a wonderful candidate for the presidency Maariv 11 04 212 I think I m the playwright or the director and not the actor And the actors need to be onstage not the director And I think it s absurd that people who do what I do become as important as celebrated as the ones who are running 152 Speaking to GOP congressional hopefuls in 1978 If any of you do get elected and chances are 19 to 1 you won t don t run your own campaign don t let your spouse do it and don t listen to the nice lady who praises the brilliance of your speech she probably was the only one in the audience who thought so He said Proposition 13 just passed in California shouldn t be interpreted as evidence people want services cut They want taxes cut and voters aren t sophisticated enough to understand that one leads to the other 213 He cited the 1965 New York mayoral campaign of John Lindsay elected because he promised to cut the budget in half and double the services Four years later when it was apparent that he had doubled the budget and cut services Lindsay said Yes I made a mistake but he was re elected when he promised to help end the Vietnam War 213 Said in 1979 that there are three kinds of candidates wives the wife who hates politics and refuses to come out of the house the wife who is reluctant but will do what she is asked and the wife who wants to be the candidate and loves politics more than her husband does He put Rosalynn Carter and Arlene Mrs Phil Crane in the last category 5 After being praised for his winning advice in a Nassau County election I m a hero but the first time a town clerk loses an election after my figures show him winning I will be over the hill and a bum 5 Longtime associate George Birnbaum I would always say Arthur do you realize how much we re changing history He would say I don t know how much we re changing history we re touching history 1 In 2011 in one of his last public speeches he said I wanted to change the world I did this I made it worse 214 References edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Roberts Sam August 19 2017 Arthur Finkelstein Innovative Influential Conservative Strategist Dies at 72 The New York Times Archived from the original on November 12 2022 Retrieved August 26 2017 a b c d e Janofsky Michael November 5 1992 Behind the Victory D Amato Strategist Shuns the Spotlight The Retrieved October 9 2009 a b c Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on October 15 2012 Retrieved November 16 2009 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link a b Schudel Matt Arthur Finkelstein quietly influential GOP campaign mastermind dies at 72 The Washington Post August 19 2017 a b c d e f g h Lynn Frank A Political Pollster for Conservatives The New York Times December 16 1979 Buckley James L If Men Were Angels A View From the Senate New York G P Putnam s Sons 1976 p 25 Evidence of Finkelstein s polling work for Nixon is cited in Catholic Historical Review Jan 2012 issue Vol 98 No 1 Catholic Cacophony Richard Nixon The Church and Welfare Reform specifically Letter from Arthur Finkelstein to Robert Marik December 16 1971 attached to Memorandum from Roy Morey to John Ehrlichman September 24 1971 White House Central Files Subject File Religious Matters Box 18 Folder RM 3 1 Catholic 1 1 71 12 72 RMNPP a b Get Ready To Rumble archive is Newsweek and The Daily Beast February 8 2013 Archived from the original on February 8 2013 Taylor Paul The Washington Post October 15 1982 Helms Modernizes GOP Political Machine for the Electronic Age a b c d e f g Christensen Rob Raleigh News amp Observer September 8 2017 He was the man behind the curtain in NC politics Los Angeles Times January 11 1993 OBIT F Clifton White Architect of 64 Goldwater Campaign Shirley Craig 2005 Reagan s Revolution The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All Nashville Tennessee Nelson Current p 417 ISBN 0 7852 6049 8 Witcover Jules Marathon New York Viking Press 1977 p 419 ISBN missing Robinson Mike Washington Dateline Associated Press May 5 1979 Sinclair Ward The Washington Post October 8 1982 Is Politics Threatening to Become Poll itics The Electorate and the Art of Pulse Taking Viguerie Richard The New Right We re Ready to Lead Falls Church Va Viguerie Co rev ed 1981 p 57 and Edwards Lee The Conservative Revolution New York Free Press 1999 p 186 ISBN missing The Washington Post December 13 1982 Latest Mixers Of Politics Religion Scrutinized Martin Lawrence Toronto Globe and Mail December 28 1978 U S veers toward New Right on anti Government wave Andersen Tena Associated Press October 3 1980 National Conservative Group Drops out of Anti McGovern Campaign Alexander Herbert Financing the 1980 Election Rowman amp Littlefield 1983 Don McLeod Associated Press February 4 1977 Cannon Lou Conservatives Are Cool To Forming Third Party The Washington Post February 5 1977 The Washington Post May 29 1978 Gailey Phil The New York Times September 24 1986 Bigotry Issue in Carolina Campaign Robinson Mike Associated Press March 6 1979 Lynn Frank The New York Times December 16 1979 Sec 22 p 1 Herman Robin The New York Times August 23 1980 A Persistent D Amato Focuses on Javits s Record and Health Sen Fires Gay Pollster Daily News New York August 28 1997 a b c Allen Kenneth S St Petersburg Times April 11 1988 Attack politics specialist to lead Mack campaign The New York Times October 18 1976 Madden Richard L The New York Times December 21 1980 It Costs More to Win Votes Feinstein John Bauman I ll Carry This to My Grave The Washington Post August 15 1982 Shirley Craig 2009 Rendezvous with Destiny Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America Wilmington DE ISI Books p 478 ISBN 978 1 933859 55 2 Cattani Richard Reagan will keep close tabs on public image The Christian Science Monitor January 13 1981 p 1 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March 22 2005 Retrieved August 26 2017 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link a b His mother said so Israel News Haaretz Daily Newspaper Archived from the original on January 25 2013 a b c Janofsky Michael November 11 2004 G O P Adviser Says Bush s Evangelical Strategy Split Country The New York Times Archived from the original on February 3 2022 Retrieved August 26 2017 a b Baker Donald P GOP Pupils Learn Humility Workshop for Congressional Hopefuls The Washington Post June 20 1978 C1 Hannes Grassegger Die Finkelstein Formel Das MagazinNr 1 2 12 Januar 2019 page 8 17 Online External links editAppearances on C SPAN Romanian journalist Cristi Suţu photo of Finkelstein CEVRO Institut Forum Arthur Finkelstein audio only on YouTube 2011 Lecture in Prague by Finkelstein Orban ket napja talalkoztam Finkelsteinnel 15 05 15 2015 on YouTube News report in Hungarian concerning Finkelstein and Viktor Orban Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Arthur J Finkelstein amp oldid 1219083684, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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