Hating Hillary -- and yourself?

The man behind an upcoming Swift Boat-style campaign against Hillary Clinton reveals his recent marriage -- to another man.

Published April 11, 2005 12:28PM (EDT)

Hillary Clinton should think about sending a wedding present.

We've known for some time that Arthur Finkelstein, the political advisor who helped shaped the careers of the likes of George Pataki and Jesse Helms, is planning to launch a pre-emptive strike against any HRC run for the White House. As New York magazine reported -- and we noted -- back in February, Finkelstein is putting together a "Stop Her Now" campaign designed around Swift-Boat style anti-Hillary charges.

It won't be the first time that Finkelstein has led the attack against a Democratic candidate: again and again in his career, the reclusive advisor has made "liberal" a dirty word as he's bashed and smeared his clients' opponents. But Finkelstein's anti-Hillary campaign will be his first since the right-wing partisans who fund his work found out this little truth about Finkelstein: In December, he got married -- to another man.

"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," Finkelstein told the <a target= "new" href="New York Times. We wonder if Finkelstein has set forth his views with such clarity in discussions with Helms, the retired North Carolina senator who was known to refer to homosexuality as "sickening" and fought funding for AIDS treatment funding on the grounds that the disease was the result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct" by homosexuals.

And there's one more thing we wonder: When Finkelstein makes the rounds of the religious right for contributions to "Stop Her Now," will his would-be donors' hatred for Hillary trump their hatred for the "radical homosexual agenda" of which Finkelstein appears to be a part?


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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