Longshot Senate candidate Finkelstein taking his best shot

Finkelstein winning attention, but will votes follow?

Larry Peterson

Jim Finkelstein's campaign for U.S. Senate got off to a bad start.

The Albany's attorney's name was misspelled on the Secretary of State's Web site.

Things have gotten only slightly better.

Refusing to accept "even a dime" from special-interest political action committees, he lacks money for advertising - except maybe some cable TV. He's been excluded from some of the debates.

Most news outlets divide the eight-way race for the Democratic nomination into two tiers. The first - three candidates reporters have heard of - get coverage. The rest, including Finkelstein, get an occasional mention.

That hasn't kept Finkelstein from being a tireless campaigner trying to squeeze the most out of every day before the July 20 primary.

Atlanta today. Savannah tomorrow. Valdosta the day after that. Then Columbus. And back to Atlanta.

A fierce competitor who friends say is tough on the boards in pickup basketball games at the Albany Y - where he's a coach - the Pennsylvanian keeps plugging away.

Ask him about health care, jobs or taxes, and he's as articulate and seeming knowledgeable as any of the other candidates. And more so than some.

"He's awfully intelligent and has a lot of depth on the issues," says Bill Lightle, an Albany teacher and writer who's known Finkelstein for more than 20 years.

Still, it's only a slight exaggeration to call the veteran Georgia Legal Services lawyer a one-issue candidate.

The centerpiece in his platform is to set a date to bring all American troops home from Iraq within six months.

"If it weren't for Iraq, I wouldn't be in this race," he says.

Like many, he believes that the war there was wrong.

What's worse, he says, U.S. forces remaining there "are sitting ducks in a shooting gallery," ill-equipped and on a mission for which they're poorly trained.

Hardly a pacifist, Finkelstein won't rule out the possibility of using air or sea power or land-based quick strikes to protect American interests in the Middle East.

"But the bottom line is that we need an exit strategy," he said.

Finkelstein has more incentive than most to want one: His son, Ben, a 24-year-old lieutenant in the Marine Corps reserves, already has served one hitch in Iraq and might be due for another.

And that, more than anything else, he says, is why he's running for the U.S. Senate.

"When I saw my son leave last year," he said, " I went literally a month without any word about him. You can't imagine what it is like, knowing your child is in the middle of a war 7,000 miles away and you are utterly helpless to do anything about it."

Last summer, after Ben returned from combat unscathed, Finkelstein started a file on his computer called Senate 2004.

As he sees it, President Bush started the war as a Republican re-election strategy and Democrats in Congress - afraid of being cast as wimps - caved in.

"Every Democrat who voted to authorize force knew this war was purely political," he said. "The economy was tanking and the Republicans needed an issue to drive all the other issues off the front pages and put the Democrats on the defensive."

And what does that have to do with him running for the Senate?

Everything, he insists.

People should elect him "because it would never in a million years occur to me to put people's lives in danger, to cause people to be killed for personal political advantage."

Lately, he's been getting a little more attention on blogs, political Web sites, radio shows and in letters-to-the-editor columns.

He'll get broader exposure with a televised debate in Atlanta on July 12 and a Georgia Public Television debate on July 18.

Does he have a chance?

No way, experts say.

Reflecting the conventional wisdom, Atlanta political analyst Bill Shipp, predicts a runoff between U.S. Rep. Denise Majette and millionaire businessman Cliff Oxford.

Initially, Finkelstein begged - or rather demanded - to differ.

Except for political insiders, he says, almost no one outside her district has heard of Majette, the supposed frontrunner. Fewer still knew about Oxford.

"Same for the other candidates," he said. "I think we started out basically equal."

Last week, he was less optimistic, or, as he put it, "more realistic."

Some of the ducks he thought might line up - endorsements or opportunities for broader exposure - aren't.

Now he talks about winning in a different context.

"If this issue - the need for an exit strategy in Iraq, becomes a major issue of this campaign," he said, "then I've done my job.

"My goal is to let people know that there is a candidate who's not in the race for the job or the title but for the opportunity to help end the war and bring the troops home safe."

Still, Finkelstein finds it hard to separate that issue from what he says is the political clout of defense contractors, which, in turn have been major supporters of the war.

While they've enjoyed multi-billion-dollar contracts for fighters and submarines, he said, American foot soldiers gone to war without adequate protective gear.

Finkelstein wants defense contractors barred from contributing to political campaigns.

And recently, he called on the three members of Congress in the Senate race to give back campaign donations from defense contractors - or get out of the race.

Alleging that such contributions pose a conflict of interest, he issued the challenge not only to Republicans Johnny Isakson and Mac Collins, but to Majette, too.

No one's holding his breath.

Still, it's the sort of chutzpah former Arizona congressman Sam Coppersmith, a high school classmate, says Finkelstein always has shown.

Coppersmith recalled the day when high school senior Finkelstein was competing in a "Scholastic Quiz" contest.

"On the final question, they asked him what the ratio of elements was in some chemical compound. He said, 'One to one.' They said, 'You're wrong; it's 50 to 50.' He stood his ground, saying it was the same thing.

"Jim had the gumption then to talk up to the guys in suits. He still does. I don't know whether it will work. But he's doing it for the right reasons."

JIM FINKELSTEIN'S EXIT STRATEGY FOR IRAQ

We should announce to the Iraqis and to the world that we will be gone from Central Iraq in six months. That is long enough to train police and an internal security force (police academies and boot camps take far less time), and any Iraqis who want to fight for their own freedom are welcome to sign up. After six months, we should leave Baghdad and every major city in Iraq, keeping only enough troops in the north to protect the Kurds and in the south to ensure the oil fields are not seized. As soon as possible, we should then turn those tasks over to United Nations peacekeepers and leave the country.

In consideration of the fact that Iraq has viciously attacked two of its neighbors - Iran and Kuwait - in the last 25 years, we should absolutely prohibit the new government of Iraq from having an army or any military force other than the police necessary for keeping order.

Finally, we should keep the Iraqi oil revenues out of the hands of future dictators or terrorists. We should not allow the government of Iraq to have the use of revenues from southern oil fields, which should remain occupied by a neutral outside military force. Half of the oil revenues should be used to compensate families with killed or injured loved ones from Iraq's aggressive wars and to repay the United States for our costs. The other half should be distributed to the Iraqi people by non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross, Care, Doctors without Borders, OxFam, and UNICEF. Not one dollar from oil revenues should go to purchase weapons, to pay the families of suicide bombers or to support terrorism.