Buffalo Chip

Elmira, New York Back in 1999, when Hillary Clinton was still first lady and setting her sights on a U.S. Senate seat representing New York, her eventual opponent, Rick Lazio, taunted that she "needs an exploratory committee to find Elmira." Clinton's response was weak. She claimed to have stopped off in this small upstate town some 40 years earlier, on a family trip from Chicago to Scranton, Pennsylvania (even though Elmira is not exactly on the way). But, if her relationship to Elmira at the start of her campaign was tenuous at best, since then the town has become emblematic of just how intimately Clinton has gotten to know the geography, politics, and personalities of upstate New York--and how well upstate New York has gotten to know her.Sitting in a living room adorned with pictures of Clinton posing with various members of his family, Elmira City Council member and former Mayor Jim Hare ticks off all the local places she has been: Bradley Farms, the Hilliard Corporation, Granny's Restaurant, the warplane museum, Brand Park, Elmira City Hall, Light's Bake Shop, Mandell's Restaurant. "She shakes hands with people, and they come away very impressed," says Hare, a moderate Democrat. "She's not the demon they thought she was." Hare sends me to Light's, off North Main Street, to get a take from other locals. He sent Clinton there, too, during her campaign. And, knowing that she has preceded me, I expect to find more photographs on the wall. Instead, I have to prod the owner to bring out the album of snapshots from behind the counter. When I ask why they aren't up, she shrugs. But Sundae Grimes-Yates, who owns a bridal shop in nearby Corning, explains later in the day that displaying such photos and posters in local businesses is frowned upon. Many people aren't as enthusiastic about Clinton as Jim Hare. And having pictures up risks alienating regular customers. This persistent ambivalence gets lost when pundits point to upstate New York, as they have begun to with increasing regularity, as proof of Clinton's potential as a presidential candidate. Eleanor Clift laid out the burgeoning conventional wisdom last year in Newsweek: "Like Moses leading her party to the Promised Land, Hillary is treading a path to Red-State America. She may be the darling of the liberal left, but she won in New York by appealing to upstate voters who are traditionally Republican." Washington Post reporter John Harris employed the same logic when asked whether Clinton could shed her polarizing image in pursuit of the presidency. "We've seen here in New York state that she did, in fact, manage to do something like that," Harris told the "Today" show's Matt Lauer. "She ran very competitively and actually won some counties upstate with Republican-leaning voters. So that suggests that she did it in New York. That, to me, says it's possible she could do it nationally." Although the junior senator from New York hasn't said anything yet about a return to the White House, a run appears likely. And, in anticipation, her champions are making upstate their best defense against doubts about her "electability"--a term popular with Democratic primary voters last time around. But, before the Hillary-can-do-it-because-she-did-it-upstate narrative gets any more airtime, it's worth pointing out its fatal flaws. Namely, upstate New York is not that conservative. Clinton hasn't done all that well here--in fact, she lost the region in 2000 and remains a highly polarizing figure. And, when she has won people over, it's been through retail politics at a very local level. Ultimately, if she's going to do well as a presidential candidate, she and her advisers must accept that her Senate campaign doesn't count as a dress rehearsal. She's going to have to bring something else to the national stage. Among those promoting upstate as evidence is former Clinton White House spokesman Mike McCurry. Asked on CNN about Clinton's 2008 prospects, he responded, "Hillary really went upstate New York and won the hearts of people up there. That's hard to do, because that's pretty much red-state country in some of those counties up there." But McCurry, who was once press secretary to the dean of New York politics, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, should know better. Upstate New York is hardly a red state in microcosm. The numbers, the social profile, and the political culture of the place just don't support the claim. It's true that Republicans and Conservatives outnumber Democrats and Liberals in 44 out of 53 upstate counties. But that statistic is deceptive. The most conservative upstate voters are found in the region's rural areas, which are comparable to the conservative pockets of the Midwest. The major cities, however--Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany--lean Democratic. In many ways, they resemble the aging industrial communities of New England. And, since the cities are more densely populated than the rural areas, overall upstate voter registration is nearly evenly split. The latest figures show 38 percent of upstate voters registered with the Republican or Conservative parties and 36 percent with the Democratic or Liberal parties. So, numbers-wise, upstate is far more purple than red. At first glance, the demographics of the area do play into the red-state stereotype. The population is predominantly white. Median household income lags slightly behind the national average. The decline of domestic manufacturing and the pressures on the family farm have taken their toll. Yet, socially, upstate is quite different from red America. Whereas "values" issues are said to dominate in red states, here the economy is paramount. There isn't the evangelical network that mobilized red-state conservatives to the polls in the last presidential election. "Abortion is not an overwhelmingly resonant issue in this area--people accept that, under certain circumstances, it should be legal," says Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, a pillar of the upstate Republican establishment. In fact, according to Utica-based pollster John Zogby, the conservatism of upstate voters is actually a myth. "They may be more conservative than New York City or San Francisco," Zogby says. "But they're pretty middle-of-the-road. They tilt pro-choice, pro-gun control. The culture of New York is built around spending, around the welfare state, and they want their cut. Sure, there are conservatives here. But upstate will gladly give Democrats their vote." When they do go Republican, upstate voters tend to go for moderates like recently retired nine-term Representative Amo Houghton, who broke with his party to vote against Bill Clinton's impeachment, Bush's 2003 tax cut, and the war in Iraq. Four members of the upstate congressional delegation are part of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group founded to elect and keep social and fiscal moderates in Congress. Yet, lately, even the moderate Republicans are having a tough time upstate. In the campaign for governor, Democrat Eliot Spitzer is besting all of his potential Republican rivals by 18 points or more in polls of upstate voters. And, now that Jeanine Pirro, the former Westchester County district attorney and an Elmira native, has effectively admitted that she couldn't hack it against Clinton in the Senate race, there are no significant Republican contenders on the horizon. Citing declining registration and a dearth of candidates, one prominent upstate Republican confides, "I think the Republican Party in New York state is in serious, serious trouble." But, even in this less-than-hostile terrain, Clinton's performance hasn't been that spectacular. She actually lost upstate by three points to her 2000 opponent, Rick Lazio. And that's despite the fact that Lazio entered the race late--after Rudy Giuliani dropped out in May--and then wasted further time downstate trying to catch up to Clinton's fund-raising. That's despite the poor judgment on display when the Long Island native introduced himself to upstate voters with an ad of himself walking on the beach. (Don't bother with your atlas: Upstate has no ocean beaches.) And that's despite the debate debacle, when Lazio ticked off upstate voters--particularly those who were unemployed-- by declaring that the ailing upstate economy had already "turned the corner." Though Clinton didn't beat her opponent upstate, it could be argued that she did fairly well there by the standards of Democratic Senate candidates. She gained two points over Moynihan in 1994 and four points over Chuck Schumer in 1998. But previous candidates didn't spend nearly as much time upstate as she did. Schumer's postelection upstate tour was billed as a bid to make peace with skeptical strangers. "I know you don't know me," he told voters in Ogdensburg. "All I can say is, `Give me a chance.'" Clinton, by contrast, launched her much- ridiculed "listening tour" of voter concerns upstate and parked herself here for much of her 16-month campaign. The strategy was one of necessity. Whereas Democrats could once focus on New York City and its suburbs and not have to worry about the prospect of losing most of upstate by large margins, voter registration numbers in the city have been falling and upstate now accounts for 62 percent of the electorate. When Clinton did her postelection swing, The New York Times called it a "victory tour" and noted that she thanked upstate supporters by their first names. She had a lot to be thankful for. If she hadn't performed at least decently upstate, not only could she have lost the race, but, after spending so much time here, it would have been a true embarrassment--like Joe Lieberman, who skipped the 2004 Iowa caucuses and moved into an apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire, but who still finished with only 9 percent of the vote and in fifth place in the primary there. But, while Clinton may have done all right upstate for a Democratic Senate candidate, she didn't do that well compared with Democratic presidential contenders. Al Gore and John Kerry both won upstate with 49 percent of the vote, compared with Clinton's 46 percent. Where Clinton won ten upstate counties, Gore took 18 and Kerry 14. Although voters may base their choice for president on different criteria than they use for picking statewide candidates, Clinton was never like other statewide candidates. From the start, she was a national figure. And the comparison to Democratic presidential contenders is particularly important, as it speaks to her national electability. If Gore and Kerry won upstate New York but couldn't make sufficient red-state inroads, Clinton's loss upstate doesn't seem to bode well for her potential in truly red parts of the country. It's also a bad sign that Clinton remains so polarizing among upstate voters. To listen to some political observers, you would think she had won over most of the skeptics. In Hillary's Turn, Michael Tomasky writes that Clinton's campaign strategy, particularly upstate, was a success because she got people to look past the stereotypes that had been pinned on her--that she was uber- liberal, that she was pushy and judgmental, that she harbored selfish motives. "She persuaded people, at least 55 percent of them, to see her anew," Tomasky writes. Yet, on this point, Tomasky is simply wrong. The 55 percent he cites represents the total vote Clinton won statewide. Certainly not all of those people had an unfavorable opinion of her to begin with. From upstate, there's anecdotal evidence that she has changed a few minds. But there are also people like Chuck Pinkey. After Clinton began her listening tour, Pinkey, a self-identified conservative and owner of River Valley Ford Tractor, placed an ad for a "hillary clinton manure spreader sale" in Oneonta's Daily Star. "1 medium size heavy duty manure spreader with a floor so slick, nothing sticks," the ad read. "She spreads manure to the right or left, depending how the wind is blowing." Six and a half years later, Pinkey doesn't have any regrets. "I've said many times that all she's giving upstate New York is lip service," he says, adding that his opinions haven't changed since Clinton took office. "They've been confirmed." The polls suggest there are more Pinkeys than converts here. While Clinton's favorable rating among upstate voters climbed a few points between her listening tour launch in July 1999 and Election Day in 2000, her unfavorable rating barely budged. Her polling has improved slightly since then, with the number of voters who say they have an unfavorable opinion of her dropping from 50 to 42 percent in Zogby surveys. And her approval rating has climbed 20 points, from 36 to 56 percent, since she entered office, according to Quinnipiac University polls. But the significance of this improvement is unclear. Her numbers track closely with Schumer's, and no one is talking him up as the Democrats' best chance to reclaim the White House. Plus, as Syracuse University political scientist Kristi Andersen points out, "People are predisposed to think favorably of their own senator. Congress is terrible, but their own senator is fine." Especially when she does their bidding. In May 2004, Clinton attended a fund-raiser in Corning. It was a typical affair: About 80 people gathered at a private home for cocktails and mingling. Yet this particular evening was hosted by Jamie Houghton, chairman of one of the region's largest employers, Corning Inc., and brother of the former Republican representative. "When I introduced Hillary, I told the crowd that the last time a Houghton had a fund-raiser for a Democrat was about 1812," he said. Why the sudden detente? Well, Clinton was integral in passing clean diesel legislation that requires vehicles to be fitted with pollutant-trapping catalytic converters. And it was Corning that invented the ceramic substrates used in those converters. Which brings us to yet another problem with using Clinton's upstate record as a predictor of national success: The upstate voters she has won over she courted with retail politics: showing up in small towns, becoming fluent in the most parochial of concerns, and delivering federal dollars. In a region that historically hasn't seen much of its senators, she has been omnipresent. Zogby says it's these repeat visits that have done the most to expand her support base. "Presence is so important to upstate voters," he says. "The psychology is: If you pay attention to us, we'll give you support." But retail politics don't translate well nationally. "Obviously, you can't do a listening tour in all twelve zillion counties," says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, though he suggests that the same skills are useful during primary season. Clinton's primary potential, however, is not in question. Right now, she's lapping all the obvious Democratic contenders in the polls. What's doubtful is how she would fare in a general election, where votes are sought not in intimate gatherings but in huge rallies, where legislation setting aside money for ceramic substrates produced by Corning Inc. isn't going to make a splash, and where there isn't much of a window to get voters to look past the stereotypes. Even Jim Hare has his doubts: "She had the time to come through here. She was able to mix and mingle. I don't know in a nationwide kind of thing if she will have the opportunity to overcome the demonization. In New Hampshire or Iowa, she could. But, in the battle of paid advertising, that becomes harder, because people just don't see the real person." Ultimately, Clinton and upstate may have the same challenge ahead of them. At a job fair in Syracuse last month, she addressed concerns about upstate brain drain by suggesting that the steady stream of young people leaving has more to do with an image problem than an actual shortage of job prospects in the region. "We're trying," she said, "to not only get the word out about the benefits of living in upstate New York, but to start the process of changing the perception." Most people, though, are as certain of their beliefs about Clinton as they are about the connection between Syracuse and snow. It will be difficult to convince conservatives to see her in a more complex way, as the candidate who combines their concerns about values and the economy and national security into one presidential package. And, contrary to what the pundits say, Clinton's performance in upstate New York certainly doesn't prove she can do it.

By marisa katz