Husbands a Hot Topic in N.Y. Senate Race

AP ^ | 8/21/5 | MARC HUMBERT

[SmithL]

Albany -- Is this a Senate race or country music?

Cheating husbands. An out-of-wedlock child. Prison bars. Strong, independent women standing by their wayward men.

The stuff of late nights, neon-lit jukeboxes and smoky roadhouses? Not quite.

These women are Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeanine Pirro, both lawyers and both with homes in a tony suburb north of New York City, and they're on a possible political collision course.

Clinton is the former first lady seeking a second term as New York's junior Democratic senator, and just possibly eyeing a run for the White House in 2008. Pirro, a district attorney known for her cable television crime-case commentary, wants to be the Republican to challenge Clinton's 2006 re-election bid.

GOP boosters encouraged Pirro to run, reasoning in part that any liability presented by Albert Pirro, the disbarred lawyer-lobbyist who served 11 months in federal prison for tax fraud, would be canceled out by Bill Clinton's better-known White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.

"Hillary didn't seem to get hurt by whatever her husband did, so I think they would negate each other, and it would be, hopefully, Hillary versus Jeanine," Saratoga County GOP Chairman Jasper Nolan said in May when Pirro first said she might run for the Senate.

Maybe not.

"The difference between Jeanine Pirro and Hillary Clinton is Jeanine Pirro's husband served time and Hillary's didn't," said Republican strategist Nelson Warfield. "Generally, you like your candidates to talk about convictions, but not their husband's convictions."

[wouldntbprudent]

"The difference between Jeanine Pirro and Hillary Clinton is Jeanine Pirro's husband served time and Hillary's didn't," said Republican strategist Nelson Warfield. "Generally, you like your candidates to talk about convictions, but not their husband's convictions."

Of all the golldarn stoopid comments.

The difference is that Pirro's husband served time and the Hildebeast's husband should have!!!

C'mon, people. If you're going to go around calling yourself a "Republican strategist," get a grip.

[NYpeanut]

Strong, independent women standing by their wayward men.

Strong, independent women do not stand by their wayward men. They kick them out to the curb with the rest of the trash.