Raising money to take on Senator Clinton isn’t nearly as easy as it was in 2000 when she first ran for the Senate, one of her potential 2006 Republican opponents said yesterday.

“In 2000, it was very knee-jerk,” a Manhattan lawyer, Edward Cox, a son-in-law of President Nixon, said. “It’s now, ‘What have you got to offer against her.'”

“The dislike is still there, but the people out there were disappointed once,” he explained.

In 2000, the former first lady easily beat the former representative, Rick Lazio, even though he quickly was able to raise more than $40 million after replacing Mayor Giuliani as the GOP Senate candidate. Mr. Giuliani, then the mayor of New York City, quit the race to battle prostate cancer.

Meanwhile, Jeanine Pirro, another potential Republican Clinton challenger, said her fund-raising ability shouldn’t be judged by a required campaign filing due next month.

“You really can’t have a test in four weeks,” the Westchester County district attorney, who launched her campaign in August, said.

The candidates’ comments appear designed to explain what could be relatively paltry showings in the race for donations when they file reports October 15 with the Federal Election Commission. Mrs. Clinton already had more than $12 million in the bank as of the end of June.

Mrs. Pirro said her fund-raising ability really couldn’t be gauged until the end of this year. Both she and Mr. Cox said hurricanes Katrina and Rita had slowed fund-raising.

Mrs. Pirro and Mr. Cox are among four Republicans eyeing the GOP nomination to challenge the former first lady’s re-election bid next year, a race they say Mrs. Clinton will use as a stepping stone to run for the White House in 2008.

Mrs. Clinton has sent out a fund-raising appeal to potential supporters saying the opposition will “raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars” to defeat her next year.

Other potential GOP Senate candidates include the former Yonkers mayor, John Spencer, and tax attorney William Brenner of Sullivan County.