NEW YORK - It was never going to be easy to unseat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose multimillion dollar war chest and likely presidential ambitions have made her Senate re-election bid seem almost an afterthought.
But don't tell that to former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer and Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland, the two Republicans locked in a bitter fight to challenge Clinton in November.
Spencer and McFarland have engaged in one of the strangest primary campaigns the state has seen in recent years - a frothy and often torrid soap opera that has delighted New York's infamous tabloids while puzzling political observers.
The contest has been dominated by tales of adultery, child sexual abuse, elitism and nepotism, with a bit of teenage shoplifting thrown in.
And with Clinton heavily favored to win no matter who takes the Sept. 12 primary, the Spencer-McFarland faceoff has seemed at times like a pointless exercise in personal humiliation.
“Nobody is interested, the candidates have no money, and they're running for the right to get trounced by Hillary Clinton,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
The most recent Quinnipiac poll showed Clinton leading Spencer by a margin of 62 to 24 percentage points.
Against McFarland, Clinton leads by a margin of 64 to 24 percentage points.
Still, both Spencer and McFarland are pressing forward in the final days before the primary, traveling the state and shaking hands.
Neither has raised enough money to air the kind of statewide television ads necessary to boost their name recognition. McFarland reported $282,131 on hand and $307,590 in debt in her last financial disclosure at the end of June, not including the $100,000 she has loaned her campaign. Spencer had $646,335 on hand and $301,186 in debt.
What's left has been a battlefield of personal accusations and recriminations.
Spencer has been grilled about his unconventional private life as Yonkers mayor, where he served from 1996-2004.
While married to another woman, Spencer fathered two children with his then-chief of staff, Kathy Spring, and significantly raised her salary. He and Spring have since married and had a third child.
In their only debate of the campaign, McFarland accused Spencer of adultery and nepotism and said his behavior with Spring spoke to a lack of professional credibility. Spencer denied that the relationship was an “affair” and accused McFarland of discrediting Spring's professionalism.
McFarland, in turn, has weathered revelations that she abandoned an AIDS-stricken brother in the mid-1990sh, and that she'd accused her father of physically and sexually abusing her as a child.
Her father has vigorously denied the allegations, while another brother publicly denounced McFarland as “evil.”
Lately, Spencer's found himself explaining why he once joked about killing Gov. George Pataki, and has apologized for using ethnic slurs against Italians and Chinese.
McFarland, meanwhile, was forced to suspend her campaign for a few days in mid-August, after her teenage daughter was arrested for shoplifting.
The contest has also produced a vivid clash of ideology and social class.
Spencer, a tough-talking Vietnam War vet who never graduated from college, is an abortion rights opponent who favors strict crackdowns on illegal immigration.
He's tried to stress his practical experience running heavily Democratic Yonkers, the state's fourth-largest city.
McFarland, a Park Avenue denizen married to an investment banker, is a self-described moderate who favors abortion rights. She's tried to emphasize her foreign policy credentials, honed as a national security staffer during the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.
Spencer has been endorsed by the state GOP and the small but influential Conservative Party. He's dismissed McFarland a “liberal elitist” and repeatedly questioned why she's even staying in the race.
“Despite the lies and innuendo that have been thrown my way, I've not run a negative campaign,” Spencer said in an interview. “Mrs. McFarland's campaign has been a detriment to the effort to unseat Hillary Clinton. I want to go forward now and focus on the real campaign.”
But McFarland got enough support at the state Republican convention to be on the primary ballot, and has recently submitted petitions to run as the candidate of the newly created “Jobs and Security Party” in November.
Spencer's campaign has challenged the validity of the petitions and whether McFarland submitted enough for her new party to qualify.
“American politics has always been rough and tumble. I expected it, and have held my own,” McFarland said in an interview. She said she believes she's in good shape to win the primary, saying voters have expressed to her “a hunger for a new generation of Republican leaders.”
With so much bickering between the two candidates, Clinton - the putative focus of Spencer and McFarland's campaign efforts - has been largely absent from the mayhem.
She engaged only once, in August, when Spencer began running television ads on local cable stations that paired her with Osama bin laden.
Clinton, who faces anti-Iraq war candidate Jonathan Tasini on primary day, denounced the ad as “beyond outrageous,” adding “He'll have to answer for it, but I think it's a terrible injustice.”
Spencer and McFarland have engaged in one of the strangest primary campaigns the state has seen in recent years - a frothy and often torrid soap opera that has delighted New York's infamous tabloids while puzzling political observers.
The contest has been dominated by tales of adultery, child sexual abuse, elitism and nepotism, with a bit of teenage shoplifting thrown in.
And with Clinton heavily favored to win no matter who takes the Sept. 12 primary, the Spencer-McFarland faceoff has seemed at times like a pointless exercise in personal humiliation.
“Nobody is interested, the candidates have no money, and they're running for the right to get trounced by Hillary Clinton,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
The most recent Quinnipiac poll showed Clinton leading Spencer by a margin of 62 to 24 percentage points.
Against McFarland, Clinton leads by a margin of 64 to 24 percentage points.
Still, both Spencer and McFarland are pressing forward in the final days before the primary, traveling the state and shaking hands.
Neither has raised enough money to air the kind of statewide television ads necessary to boost their name recognition. McFarland reported $282,131 on hand and $307,590 in debt in her last financial disclosure at the end of June, not including the $100,000 she has loaned her campaign. Spencer had $646,335 on hand and $301,186 in debt.
What's left has been a battlefield of personal accusations and recriminations.
Spencer has been grilled about his unconventional private life as Yonkers mayor, where he served from 1996-2004.
While married to another woman, Spencer fathered two children with his then-chief of staff, Kathy Spring, and significantly raised her salary. He and Spring have since married and had a third child.
In their only debate of the campaign, McFarland accused Spencer of adultery and nepotism and said his behavior with Spring spoke to a lack of professional credibility. Spencer denied that the relationship was an “affair” and accused McFarland of discrediting Spring's professionalism.
McFarland, in turn, has weathered revelations that she abandoned an AIDS-stricken brother in the mid-1990sh, and that she'd accused her father of physically and sexually abusing her as a child.
Her father has vigorously denied the allegations, while another brother publicly denounced McFarland as “evil.”
Lately, Spencer's found himself explaining why he once joked about killing Gov. George Pataki, and has apologized for using ethnic slurs against Italians and Chinese.
McFarland, meanwhile, was forced to suspend her campaign for a few days in mid-August, after her teenage daughter was arrested for shoplifting.
The contest has also produced a vivid clash of ideology and social class.
Spencer, a tough-talking Vietnam War vet who never graduated from college, is an abortion rights opponent who favors strict crackdowns on illegal immigration.
He's tried to stress his practical experience running heavily Democratic Yonkers, the state's fourth-largest city.
McFarland, a Park Avenue denizen married to an investment banker, is a self-described moderate who favors abortion rights. She's tried to emphasize her foreign policy credentials, honed as a national security staffer during the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.
Spencer has been endorsed by the state GOP and the small but influential Conservative Party. He's dismissed McFarland a “liberal elitist” and repeatedly questioned why she's even staying in the race.
“Despite the lies and innuendo that have been thrown my way, I've not run a negative campaign,” Spencer said in an interview. “Mrs. McFarland's campaign has been a detriment to the effort to unseat Hillary Clinton. I want to go forward now and focus on the real campaign.”
But McFarland got enough support at the state Republican convention to be on the primary ballot, and has recently submitted petitions to run as the candidate of the newly created “Jobs and Security Party” in November.
Spencer's campaign has challenged the validity of the petitions and whether McFarland submitted enough for her new party to qualify.
“American politics has always been rough and tumble. I expected it, and have held my own,” McFarland said in an interview. She said she believes she's in good shape to win the primary, saying voters have expressed to her “a hunger for a new generation of Republican leaders.”
With so much bickering between the two candidates, Clinton - the putative focus of Spencer and McFarland's campaign efforts - has been largely absent from the mayhem.
She engaged only once, in August, when Spencer began running television ads on local cable stations that paired her with Osama bin laden.
Clinton, who faces anti-Iraq war candidate Jonathan Tasini on primary day, denounced the ad as “beyond outrageous,” adding “He'll have to answer for it, but I think it's a terrible injustice.”
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