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by Tamara Baker

Friday, July 9, 1999 -- ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA -- Never mind the press.

Never mind the hordes of out-of-state GOP political gunsels and hit men -- the real carpetbaggers in this election -- brought in to do a number on her.

Never mind Rudy and/or Rick.

Hillary Clinton will be a United States Senator from New York in eighteen months' time. And there isn't a thing the GOP can do about it.

Except, that is, wail and gnash their teeth.

As the staunchly anti-Clinton national media notes, the "Repugs" are going to try and heatedly bash her now, using the New York press, which has a reputation for viciousness, to go after her.

And the ever-reliable national media is already allowing the smarmy bash-Hillary "commentariat" to pronounce the presumptive Democratic candidate "arrogant," "self-interested," and "out to push her personal agenda."  Yes, those are all actual mantras overheard repeatedly in the last few days on MSNBC.

But the national media has, by and large, ignored something else:  the New York press isn't exactly ignoring her probable Republican opponents, either.

New York's Republicans won't be able to conceal the fact that their own nomination process is going to be every bit as heated, if not more so, than the eventual campaign against Mrs. Clinton. Also, either of the two GOP candidates, once selected, has serious flaws going up against Hill.

Let's look at them, with the likeliest first:

1) Rudy Giuliani:  The current fave, he has serious, serious problems, not the least of which include his own marital troubles.

Seems that after marrying his wife-of-record, noted New York TV personality Donna Hanover, and using her money and TV time to win the Mayor's race the first time out, he promptly took up with one of his staffers, Christyne Lategano, leaving Donna to fume.  Not only was the missus nowhere in evidence during his second campaign for Mayor, and not only has she dropped her married name of "Giuliani" -- she refuses to speak his name ever again.

If Giuliani tries to bring up Coupgate and Monica, all Hillary need do is say "By the way, Rudy, where's your lovely wife Donna? We haven't seen her lately."

2) Rick Lazio.  This conservative gent is about as charismatic as peat moss, but he's the choice of Rudy's bitterest enemies in the New York GOP, Governor George Pataki being chief among them.  New York Republicans are generally less wacky than those in the South and West, but even here there are plenty of Newt-style GOPers around who consider the fascistic Giuliani a dangerous "liberal".

These folks remember all too well that Rudy used to be a Bobby Kennedy fan -- to the point where he campaigned for RFK's Senate campaign in New York in 1964.

And they REALLY remember his actively campaigning for Mario Cuomo, then the Democratic incumbent Governor of New York, some thirty years later in 1994.

In fact, the scuttlebutt is that he switched parties only to get some of the juicy Justice Department jobs the Reagan Administration was doling out.  It was in the JD that Giuliani met and worked with another nemesis of Hillary's, this nerdy-looking fellow named Ken Starr.  Talk about your carpetbagging!

Speaking of which:  Bobby Kennedy was, of course, from Massachusetts. But carpetbagging by a Democrat didn't bother Giuliani back in '64.

As an undergraduate at Manhattan College he wrote for Manhattan Quadrangle, the campus paper, where he championed RFK.  In his column of Oct. 9, 1964, he mentioned that "Rufus King, the first United States Senator from New York, was a Massachusetts native who moved into New York immediately before his election to the Senate."  Young Rudy also wrote that to call Bobby Kennedy a carpetbagger was to adhere to "standards of parochialism which were outdated even in 1792." He hoped that "cosmopolitan New Yorkers can rise above the ridiculous, timeworn provincial attitude that has so disunified our nation."

Would you like some sauce on your gander, Rudy?

But I digress.

Anyway, you can see the problem that faces the New York GOP.

If they go with Giuliani, they go with a conniving power junkie who has already shown his willingness to use his closest relations like toilet paper and who isn't exactly earning 100% ratings from the Heritage Foundation or the John Birch Society.

But if they go with Lazio, they go with a guy who is much more popular within the New York GOP, and much more politically correct in terms of following the Republican Party's doctrines, but who doesn't have as many average voters in his camp as does Giuliani.

And the process of choosing one of these two men will be bloody and expensive, with both sides secretly disseminating nasty information about each other to the avid local press.  By the time one of them finally emerges the victor, it will have been a Pyrrhic victory, and the "winner" will have been weakened sufficiently for Hillary to take him out come November of 2000.

And speaking of Senator's seats... a certain Arkansas Senator is occupying a rather hot one right now.

Seems that dear old Baptist minister Tim Hutchinson, brother to House Manager Asa Hutchinson (one of the GOP Senators who voted for impeachment and removal of Bill Clinton over his inappropriate relationship with a young staffer of his) has himself allegedly been "outed" as a boss engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a young staffer of his own.

Two different Arkansas publications, the new Arkansas Review (run by a former Hutchinson staffer) and The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, have published  allegations about Tim Hutchinson's upcoming divorce and his relationship with one Randi Fredholm, a law student and Hutchinson's former legislative director in Arkansas.

The divorce records are, of course, sealed, and will remain that way, but the word leaked out anyway -- so much so that the pro-Hutchinson Arkansas Democrat-Gazette felt the need to do a preemptive strike, in the form of an editorial entitled "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", in a vain attempt to keep the rest of the press from breathing a word about the subject.

Speaking of sauce for the gander... move over, Rudy: The Reverend Tim needs a place at the hypocrites' table.