Would-Be Senator Pirro Comes Out Firing Blanks

For an experienced politician, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro has gotten her US Senate candidacy off to a surprisingly rocky start.

It's not much fun when your campaign announcement is almost immediately overshadowed by a story about mob-connected businessmen among your past contributors.

And it doesn't help matters when the chief rationale for your candidacy seems to be the complaint (as quoted in The Washington Post) that your opponent is focused on running for president rather than doing her job as a senator:

"New York deserves a senator who has New York's interests at heart," Pirro told a standing-room-only gaggle of local and national media people at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. "Not the divided loyalties of one seeking to satisfy the needs of people in Iowa, New Hampshire or Florida. You can't run for two offices at once," she added.

It's a little hard to see how this charge is going to resonate, given the following facts:

(1) Hillary has not declared that she is running for president, set up an exploratory committee, talked about it with the media, or otherwise shown any interest in running.

(2) Hillary has not even visited Iowa or New Hampshire in the current presidential cycle, unlike such Republicans as Senator Bill Frist and Governors George Pataki, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee, all of whom presumably will soon be denounced by Pirro for neglecting their current duties.

(3) Virtually everyone, Democratic and Republican, who has examined Hillary's performance as a senator has observed that she does her homework, contributes to the legislative process, and defends the interests of New Yorkers. Since her election Hillary has released her inner wonk, boning up on local issues and spending time with voters from all around the state, including some of the most boring rural enclaves you can imagine.

In other words, Pirro's complaints about Hillary ignoring her constituents will ring hollow with anyone who doesn't instinctively froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the name "Clinton." Since Hillary has done nothing to fuel the presidential rumors, Pirro is in effect asking voters to punish the popular incumbent for being talked about by the Washington press.

This strikes me as a pretty slender reed on which to build a campaign.

Because we live in Westchester County (in Bill and Hillary's home town, as it happens), we hear a lot about Jeanine Pirro. She is telegenic and appears in the local media continually, promoting herself and various causes she thinks will appeal to soccer moms (like discouraging teenage drinking). But she is a lightweight--comparable politically to former Representative Susan Molinaro--and her ultimate gig is more likely to be an appointive office in Washington on an expanded role as a commentator on Fox News.

Democrats shouldn't get giddy, however. Hillary's lead will get a lot smaller than thirty points before November 2006. The current poll numbers (and the dismissive news coverage) perfectly set up a spate of "Feisty underdog putting a scare in Hillary" stories next May, when the polls show a margin of 55-45 or thereabouts. If Pirro can trim Clinton's final victory lead to ten points or less, and perhaps land a couple of blows that suggest a vulnerable spot or two, she'll have earned whatever reward the national Repugs have promised her for running.