Clinton foe Spencer fires away at Mayor Bloomberg
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer
April 6, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Conservative Senate candidate John Spencer attacked New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday over gun control, saying Bloomberg is touting "liberal solutions that simply do not work."
In an odd twist, Spencer almost ran into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton while he visited GOP lawmakers and staff as part of his effort to raise millions of campaign dollars.
As Spencer met with Republicans in a hotel conference room, Clinton and Sen. Charles Schumer were next door in a meeting about the state university system _ apparently the closest Clinton and Spencer have come to running into each other since he joined the campaign.
Spencer's host was Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., who tangled with New York's Republican mayor just last week at a congressional hearing over a crime gun bill.
Bloomberg urged lawmakers to reject what he called a "God-awful piece of legislation," while Feeney accused the mayor of trying to undermine the constitutional right to bear arms and spur more lawsuits against gun makers and dealers.
Spencer on Thursday criticized Bloomberg's stance.
"I think it's another one of these attempted liberal solutions that simply do not work - they go after legitimate citizens, trying to make their lives miserable when they've done nothing wrong and trying to control them," he said.
Spencer is taking political positions to the right of Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, who also is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Clinton. He opposes abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, and affirmative action.
The candidate said he wasn't sure how he would vote on the gun bill Bloomberg despises because he wasn't aware of all of the details, but argued the billionaire mayor's effort was wrong.
"I don't buy into the equation that going after the sellers or merchants or anything else has anything to do with reducing crime, and if someone can show me the statistics where it works, I'd be very interested in seeing it, but they don't exist," said Spencer.
Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser responded that the bill in question "has nothing to do with the right to bear arms and everything to with the dangers illegal guns pose to our police officers and citizens."
The gun trace bill would permanently bar the federal government from making public the results of traces of guns used in crimes _ statistics that have been used by New York and other U.S. cities to file lawsuits against gunmakers.
Clinton supports a bill that would do the opposite, and make such gun trace data public.
Attacking Bloomberg and boosting gun rights may help Spencer curry favor with upstate voters considered crucial to any competitive statewide race.
Spencer said he got a good reception at the gathering, where aides laid out a strategy to challenge an incumbent with a huge lead in the polls and a $17 million - and growing - campaign account.
Spencer said he was eager to "take on the myth, the myth I call it, that Sen. Clinton cannot be defeated. I find that to be just an outright myth."
He said his own city, Yonkers was "a microcosm of New York State," and campaign strategists envision a scenario in which he could pick up sizable Democratic votes, particularly among Catholics, "on the Thruway," referring to the line of older cities stretching from Yonkers up to Albany and west to Buffalo.
I feel my points stand, however. I wouldn't advocate special rights for gays but if Spencer doesn't support full equal rights for gays, including marriage and adoption, then he's no more a friend to freedom than Clinton.