Pirro Seeks to Seize the Middle Ground

ALBANY – Jeanine Pirro officially launched her Senate candidacy yesterday by attempting to stake out the middle ground on a variety of economic and social issues, ranging from tax cuts to abortion rights, and by casting the incumbent, Senator Clinton, as the captive of a fringe element within the Democratic Party.“Like many New Yorkers, I am tired of the bickering that has tied our nation’s political system in knots,” Mrs. Pirro, a Republican who is district attorney of Westchester County, said. “There are many good Republicans, as there are many good Democrats. Their voices must triumph over the extremists.”Yet the details of the centrist message that Mrs. Pirro delivered in an inaugural campaign tour, which stopped in New York City, Albany, and Buffalo, gave an early indication of the constituencies she intends aggressively to court, and those she intends to ignore, as she negotiates the political obstacle course that awaits a Republican candidate for statewide office in heavily Democratic New York.Mrs. Pirro caused a stir this week by announcing she would run not for governor or attorney general, as many had expected, but against Mrs. Clinton. The former first lady’s strong poll numbers, particularly among upstate voters, had caused many to think her invulnerable.A WNBC-Marist College poll released yesterday gave Mrs. Clinton a still-strong lead of 50% to 28% over Mrs. Pirro. A similar poll in April put Mrs. Clinton’s lead at 64% to 28%.Yesterday’s speech, delivered at the state Capitol, provided clues to the strategy that Mrs. Pirro’s advisers will use in attempting to erode Mrs. Clinton’s support even more over the next 15 months. With her chief adviser, a former top strategist to Governor Pataki, Kieran Mahoney, standing nearby, Mrs. Pirro offered a broad outline of a plan for winning over Democratic voters by highlighting some of the same themes, only in updated form, that helped Mr. Pataki beat Mario Cuomo in 1994.Mrs. Pirro’s first salvo this week was aimed at Mrs. Clinton’s commitment to the office. Referring to the widespread belief that Mrs. Clinton will seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, she said repeatedly Monday that the former first lady is using New York as a “stepping stone” to the White House. That criticism elicited no response from the Clinton campaign, and political analysts have largely dismissed it as a dud.On Wednesday, Mrs. Pirro unveiled a message that focused instead on personal security as it relates to the war on terror, economic growth, and tougher penalties against violent criminals. Mr. Pataki defeated Mr. Cuomo largely on his promise to restore the death penalty and to stimulate job growth upstate. It was notable that the only applause Mrs. Pirro drew from a crowd of about 100 in Albany came at the moment she claimed support for the USA Patriot Act.The image of Mrs. Pirro that emerged yesterday is of someone who would be a friend to Republicans most of all on taxes and defense.Abortion, too, featured prominently in Mrs. Pirro’s speech. In a sign that she will continue to seek the endorsement of the state’s Conservative Party, something coveted for decades by Republican candidates, Mrs. Pirro said she now supports a ban on the procedure known as partial-birth abortion except in cases where the mother’s life is thought to be at stake.The change in position – Mrs. Pirro said in a 2001 questionnaire that she did not support limits on the procedure – distinguishes her from Mrs. Clinton. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted health exceptions in cases of abortion to include even mental distress, Mrs. Clinton said during a floor debate in Congress last year she opposed such an exception and did not vote with the majority for a ban on the practice that contained an exception only for life threatening situations.The leader of the state’s Conservative Party, Michael Long, who has called a candidate’s support for a ban on partial-birth abortion crucial to his party’s support, said yesterday that Mrs. Pirro appeared to be “moving in the right direction.”“On the face of it, it sounds like she’s splitting hairs,” Mr. Long said. “If she has changed her position, and I don’t know that she has, certainly it’s a movement in the right direction. The door, I would think, is somewhat open for the possibility of support. But clearly the other candidates are pro-life and that gives them an upper hand.”Mr. Long was referring to two other candidates in the race, a Manhattan lawyer married to a daughter of President Nixon, Edward Cox; and a former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer. A spokesman for Mr. Cox, Thomas Basile, said yesterday that Mr. Cox supports abortion at any stage of pregnancy only in cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at stake.In another sign that Mrs. Pirro is seriously courting Conservative Party support, she distinguished herself again from Mrs. Clinton in saying she supports a law that passed Congress in April 2004 allowing those who assault pregnant women to be charged with two crimes – one against the woman and one against the baby in her womb.The lead political group on abortion rights, Naral Pro-Choice America, historically has supported incumbents who share its views. And since Mrs. Clinton has the organization’s support locked up, Mrs. Pirro may have concluded that she does not need to court its favor. Though she cast her support for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act as consistent with her tough stance on crime, Mrs. Pirro caught the attention of opponents of abortion rights by saying she would have voted for it.“Those are two important pro-life issues,” the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, Douglas Johnson, said. “Her position on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is noteworthy because that bill was vehemently opposed by Naral, the American Civil Liberties Union, and all those groups, even though it explicitly excluded abortion.”Another sign of the type of senator Mrs. Pirro would like to be was reflected in the names of those she chose to mention in her speech. Aside from Mrs. Clinton, she mentioned Senator Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and Senator McCain, Republican of Arizona, commending their work in averting the use of the “nuclear option” by the Republican majority in the Senate to break Democratic filibusters of some of President Bush’s judicial nominees.On national security, Mrs. Pirro said she supports the Patriot Act “so we can better fight the war on terror,” while indicating that she also supports liberal immigration policies. Mrs. Pirro said she supports the war on terror but would have voted to retain a federal ban on assault weapons that recently expired.On economic issues, Mrs. Pirro said she supports making Mr. Bush’s tax cuts permanent and criticized Mrs. Clinton for, she said, failing to deliver on a promise made during her first campaign to create jobs upstate. Mrs. Pirro was raised in Elmira and is a lifelong resident of the state.“When Hillary Clinton first moved to our state, she went on a ‘listening tour’ to learn about New York,” Mr. Pirro said. “She claimed she heard New Yorkers’ concerns. She made a lot of promises, like the promise of tens of thousands of jobs for upstate New York. I wonder if she has forgotten what she learned on that tour.”

Pirro Seeks to Seize the Middle Ground

Pirro Seeks to Seize the Middle Ground

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