Why Hillary wants to win LI

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

October 25, 2006

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) was endorsed for re-election by the Nassau and Suffolk Police Benevolent Associations in Bohemia. (Newsday / David L. Pokress / October 24, 2006)

During the 2000 campaign, the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association subjected Hillary Rodham Clinton to a grilling she might have expected at Bill O'Reilly's family picnic. Seventeen hostile union officials badgered her for hours about her husband's morality and rumors about her ties to '60s radicals. Then they whisked her out the door and backed Republican Rick Lazio.

Yesterday afternoon, Clinton breezed through the PBA's Bohemia office, collecting playful pecks on the cheek, a boxful of fresh cannoli and, almost as an afterthought, the union's 2006 endorsement.

"She won over the entire board," said PBA president Jeff Frayler, who says she has responded to every request he's made since their 2000 meeting. "Cops are very conservative in nature. There were things that the Clintons were associated with that we didn't like back then. ... But she's worked with us."

Clinton is paying particular attention to Long Island these days, in part to erase the memories of her 134,000-vote loss to Lazio in Nassau and Suffolk counties six years ago. ("It was hard out here," Clinton told the PBA members yesterday.) Her team is also keenly aware the Island's political profile isn't much different from the Midwestern swing states that will be vital in 2008.

"My brother writes for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and we often say how similar Ohio is to Long Island politically. It's sort of uncanny," says Bohemia-based political consultant Michael Dawidziak. "Both are places with white-collar people who have blue-collar attitudes. ...Both have independent-minded voters. The Island is very similar to the swing states."

Long Island is seeing a whole lot of Hillary during the 2006 campaign. Clinton has barnstormed through the Nassau and Suffolk area four times in as many weeks, including her PBA event.

Tomorrow - the senator's 59th birthday - Bill Clinton will host a campaign pep rally for her at Babylon Town Hall.

One Clinton insider who didn't want to be identified confirmed that winning over Long Islanders was one of the campaign's top goals for 2008.

To do so, the former first lady must court the Island's mix of cultural conservatives, middle-class households, law-and-order types, white Catholics and suburban working women - all groups the Clinton campaign desperately wants to win over.

On Long Island, Clinton has focused on pragmatic causes that might resonate in 2008 battlegrounds. She's avoided hot-button issues, spending much of her time lobbying for increased federal money for police, seeking increased breast cancer research money, paying careful attention to the needs of the Island's soldiers and veterans, and forcing Senate GOP leaders to allocate resources to improve the armor on Humvees.

Although she ardently favors abortion rights, she's also moderated her language on the issue, in hopes of not alienating Catholics. It's not like Clinton is the only Democrat who fares poorly with these groups. Fifty-five percent of Catholics, for instance, voted for George W. Bush in 2004. That disparity nearly cost John Kerry otherwise blue states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But responding to constituents only goes so far; Clinton's greatest asset on Long Island might be her charm.

"What really won me over is that on the day of our meeting in 2000, Hillary sat down with my daughter," Frayler said. "She sat with her knee-to-knee and talked with her for about a half an hour about Dolley Madison and how Dolley had rescued George Washington's portrait from the White House. That's what did it for me."

US AND THEM

LI voters are similar to those in states like Ohio that would be crucial to a presidential run. A look at some of our differences:

Buried Dead Presidents

LONG ISLAND: Teddy Roosevelt

OHIO: Warren Harding, William Howard Taft

Baseball World Series Champs

LONG ISLAND: Giants, Yankees, Mets, Dodgers