Just say no to Hillary!

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- In February, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said he would not raise the "carpetbagger" issue against Hillary Rodham Clinton in their possible Senate race.

Now he has begun doing just that.

The strategy surfaced last week when the mayor's campaign committee unveiled its HillaryNo.com computer Web site.

"Born in Illinois and carried to power in Arkansas, with no connection of any kind to New York, Hillary has set her sights on the New York Senate seat," the Web site said.

A day after the Web site went public, Giuliani said: "I didn't say I wouldn't raise it as an issue. What I said was that from my point of view that was not something critical."

In fact, during an appearance Feb. 21 on CNN's "Late Edition," the mayor was asked about the "carpetbagger" issue and answered: "That's certainly not an issue that I would raise personally."

Next year's race for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan could pit the Republican mayor against the first lady. Mrs. Clinton has not said whether she will run. Giuliani hasn't disclosed his intentions either.

Former Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, said Monday that Giuliani "is like serpent with forked tongue" for using the carpetbagger issue.

"One could argue that he is trying to scare her out" of the race, said Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton. "That's primarily the reason why you would go negative this early."

Giuliani defended his strategy shift last week, saying that people around the state kept mentioning Mrs. Clinton's lack of New York roots to him.

"Being the mayor of New York City and just listening to the views of New York City, I didn't quite understand a month, a month and a half ago, but this is a major issue," he said.

Asked if it was fair, he said: "Come on, it's politics. She presents us with an opportunity and we take advantage of it and then that's not fair? I mean is it fair that she comes to New York and raises lots of money?"

"In terms of practical politics, this is an intelligent thing to do," he said.

Some independent polls have suggested Mrs. Clinton could be vulnerable to the carpetbagger attack. A statewide poll from early February found that 46 percent of registered voters surveyed said they would be less likely to vote for a non-New Yorker. Forty-nine percent said it would make no difference.

However, the carpetbagger issue has not stopped others. The Senate seat Mrs. Clinton and Giuliani are eyeing was won in 1964 by Robert Kennedy and in 1970 by the Conservative Party's James Buckley. Kennedy had been a Massachusetts resident. Buckley hailed from Connecticut.

In fact, during Kennedy's 1964 Senate campaign, a student wrote in his college newspaper that it was "truly ridiculous" that people might not support Kennedy because of the carpetbagger issue.

"Let us hope that cosmopolitan New Yorkers can rise above the ridiculous, timeworn provincial attitude that has so disunified our nation," Manhattan College student Rudolph Giuliani wrote.