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McCain expects to woo Clinton supporters in New York

Dan Janison | dan.janison@newsday.com

June 13, 2008

Suddenly it feels early again, like the start of a brand new season. The one-on-one presidential matchup between John McCain and Barack Obama has allowed their rival teams to speak as if it were spring training and to crow that yes, they are set to go all the way this year.

Of course, any scenario can look plausible five months before citizens return to the polls. But in the home state of the disappointed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, McCain's national strategy of wooing her throngs of primary voters has a special edge.

"Oh yeah," said a well-known McCain man in New York whose tactics demanded he discuss them privately. "I think we are going to be very competitive in the state - where we would not have been if she [Clinton] were the nominee. And that is because we will get voters in various degrees of commitment to her. There's a hard-core group that says, 'We can't take what happened to her, and we don't like where he [Obama] stands on issues.'"

Wishful thinking, perhaps. This week's Quinnipiac University poll shows a 50-to-36-percent Obama advantage in the Democratic-dominated state.

Remember, though, that Republicans in big New York races do have a knack for snaring high-profile endorsements from disaffected Democrats - once described by Assemb. Herman "Denny" Farrell Jr., the former state party chairman, as "yellow-dog Democrats." And McCain loyalists say they already have some Democrats in the wings who are waiting a decent interval before announcing their defections.

As McCain visited the city yesterday, insider buzz focused on Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a top Clinton fund-raiser and Democratic platform committee member who's been quoted saying she might back McCain and expressing doubts about Obama's trustworthiness. De Rothschild, a communications mogul in her own right, is married to British banking scion Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and was at one time wed to former City Council President Andrew Stein. "I love my country more than I love my party," the Times quoted her saying. "I can't just fall in line."

In response, at least one female New York delegate pledged to Obama wants de Rothschild thrown off the platform committee.

This may be an isolated tempest, at least for now. In Suffolk, Richard Schaffer, the county Democratic chairman, said he hears no such tales on his turf. When asked about the prospect of area Democrats defecting to McCain, he said: "Not unless he rounds up some friend from college ... You don't see any of our notables doing that. Democrats in Suffolk want to see an end to the Bush era - and McCain would be more of the same."

Despite shows of Democratic unity, McCain looks to chip away. On Tuesday he came through Manhattan, visiting with Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios, the highest-ranking Orthodox Christian prelate in the western hemisphere; that showed McCain courting an ethnic community where he clearly sees an opening.

On his Web site, a McCain partisan posted a photo of McCain with Clinton and called her campaign "impressive." Also getting renewed interest in retrospect: Clinton's statement a few months ago in Ohio that "Sen. McCain brings a lifetime of experience to the campaign. I bring a lifetime of experience. And Sen. Obama brings a speech he gave in 2002."

But in the city last week, as Democrats met to settle convention plans, ex-chairman Farrell denied that the merger of Obama and Clinton forces made for a "shotgun wedding." "Oh, no, that's over with," he said. "The baby's already been born."