The chairman of the state Republican Party, Stephen Minarik, recently told me he feels as though he’s the “only one out there” going after the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor next year, Eliot Spitzer.

Mr. Minarik’s confidence in Mr. Spitzer’s vulnerability was fortified last week when a jury handed the attorney general his first defeat in a long series of broadsides against the financial services industry. A Manhattan jury acquitted a former Bank of America broker, Theodore Sihpol, of charges related to the after-hours trading of mutual funds. It was the first such investigation by Mr. Spitzer that has made it to trial.

Mr. Minarik was pleased by the verdict. But the name Theodore Sihpol is not likely to make it out of the current news cycle and into next year’s campaign. In the coming Republican attack on Candidate Spitzer, Mr. Minarik has already made clear which of the attorney general’s alleged vulnerabilities he is looking to exploit. And it is not last week’s decision in the Sihpol case, or others like it that may be in the offing.

Trial lawyers are an unpopular group, and Mr. Minarik knows it. Indeed, a look at the news clippings posted on the Web site of the state Republican Party suggests that strategists there have channeled the spirit of Charles Dickens, who summed up his contempt for attorneys thus: “If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.” Dickens may be the Republican mascot in the contest against Mr. Spitzer next year.

The strategy is not a novel one. Republicans tapped into antipathy for trial lawyers during last year’s presidential election. The Democratic candidate for vice president, John Edwards, won malpractice judgments totaling more than $50 million before his election to the U.S. Senate. Republicans seized on that record in casting the North Carolina populist as a hypocrite who made health care and insurance more costly while amassing millions for himself and his cronies.

Mr. Minarik is readying a similar attack on Mr. Spitzer, whose list of campaign contributors reads like a who’s who of prominent attorneys, including two of the most notable class-action lawsuit artists in America, David Boies and William Lerach. Mr. Boies, who defended Al Gore following the contested 2000 presidential election, is the architect of one of the largest antitrust class-action settlements in history. Mr. Lerach’s firm has filed dozens of lawsuits connected with Mr. Spitzer’s investigations into the mutual fund industry.

The Republican strategy is not without subtlety. Mr. Spitzer’s investigations have resulted in his image as a slayer of corporate malefactors on behalf of the little guy. But the message of financial transparency he delivers to the investor class is crafted to appeal to capitalists, too. By deflecting attention from Mr. Spitzer’s triumphs and toward his alliance with the likes of Messrs. Boies and Lerach, Republicans hope to obscure the source of Mr. Spitzer’s broadest appeal.

In this, they have had some assistance from Mr. Spitzer himself. Mr. Minarik had a field day in March when Mr. Spitzer skipped a St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City to speak to a conference on tort reform titled “Mass Torts Made Perfect.”

Mr. Minarik saw another pitch he liked last week. On Friday, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association announced it had named a former aide to Mr. Spitzer, Dan Feldman, its new executive director. Mr. Minarik swung away: “Is anyone really surprised one of Eliot Spitzer’s top aides is going to work for the trial lawyers?” he asked. “Spitzer’s taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from trial lawyers. He even addresses a group that actually teaches trial lawyers how to avoid tort reform. Rather than speak out against this obstructionist group, Eliot got into bed with them.”

The comments by Mr. Minarik drew a weary response from a spokesman for Mr. Spitzer, Darren Dopp, who said he was out of snarky responses to Mr. Minarik after a week of trading barbs. “This doesn’t suggest anything except that our people are qualified once they leave to assume a range of positions,” Mr. Dopp said of Mr. Feldman’s new job. “The only snarky reply I’d make to Mr. Minarik is that it’s his party that’s created a revolving door for bureaucrats and lobbyists.”

On the issue of tort reform, Mr. Dopp urged patience. “At some point in the near future, he’ll make his exact views on tort reform known,” he said. “He supports significant elements of tort reform, not all of them. At some point in the near future, he’s going to speak on the topic. But we don’t want to do it on Mr. Minarik’s timetable.”

Mr. Spitzer did speak about tort reform earlier this year at the National Press Club in Washington, opposing the Class Action Fairness Act supported by Senator Schumer. “I have always said there are problems with litigation that need to be confronted. This is not the way, just as caps on recovery are not the way,” Mr. Spitzer said then.

The jury in the trial of Mr. Sihpol pushed back against Mr. Spitzer. Will the larger jury of the electorate push back against this candidate because of his association with trial lawyers?

Mr. Minarik is doing his best, but he is not running for governor. For this case to resonate with the electorate, the state party chairman will need to find a candidate who can carry it.

Mr. McGuire is the Sun’s Albany correspondent.