Playing The Multicultural Card

There's one factor that politicians in New York State rarely count out - large ethnic voting blocs - and it's an angle that isn't being ignored by the candidates in this year's hotly contested race for the Senate.

The campaign moves of both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick Lazio show the belief that they've got to appeal to the major ethnic groups if they are to succeed.

She visits black churches. He attends "Rigatoni with Rick" events. They both go to synagogues.

On Wednesday, the first lady flew into Syracuse and headed straight to Temple Beth El in suburban DeWitt. Days earlier, the synagogue had been hit by arson. With the acrid smell of smoke still heavy in the air, she proclaimed it "a terrible thing."

Clinton's motorcade then stopped at a black church in downtown Syracuse to address more than 500 black Baptist leaders from around the state.

In a rousing speech to the congregants, the first lady told them, "We know what the good way is. I want to keep going that good way with you."

Later that night, Lazio headed to Brooklyn where he made four stops aimed at appealing to ultra-Orthodox Jewish voters. He picked up the endorsement of an important rabbi and attended three celebrations of the Jewish harvest festival Sukkot.

The day before, Clinton flew with Sen. Edward Kennedy to Buffalo where he heaped praise on her before about 400 supporters at the Buffalo Irish Center.

The week before, Lazio had been promoting his Italian roots, attending a "Rigatoni with Rick" event in Buffalo and a "Linguini with Lazio" gathering at an American Legion hall in Syracuse.

No matter that the linguine turned out to be spaghetti, the Republican congressman spoke lovingly of his grandmother, who came over from Sicily when she was just 11 years old. Her sauce pot "seemed almost as big as she was," he recalled. He noted that he shared his given name, Enrico, with his grandfather.

For Lazio, there have been meetings and photos taken with New York City's Roman Catholic Archbishop Edward Egan and with Bishop Henry Mansell of Buffalo.

In New York, Catholics made up 44 percent of the electorate in the 1998 election; 37 percent of the voters were white Catholics. It is the largest religious group in the state. Protestants made up a third of the electorate two years ago while Jews accounted for 12 percent of the vote.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had Clinton leading Lazio 50 percent to 43 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Among Catholic voters, Lazio led 53 percent to 40 percent. Among white Catholics, he led 57 percent to 35 percent. In 1998, then-Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a Catholic, captured 52 percent of the Catholic and 59 percent of the white Catholic vote. He was defeated by Democrat Charles Schumer, a Jew, 54 percent to 45 percent.

"Lazio should be performing muc better with those voters," Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said. "That's why he's doing the ethnic dance and that's why she, to protect herself, is doing the ethnic dance as well. She's not an ethnic, so she's bringing in ethnics - Kennedy and others."

The Quinnipiac poll found Clinton leading among Jews, 60 percent to 30 percent. Schumer took 76 percent of that vote two years ago after D'Amato found himself in hot water for using a Yiddish slur - "putzhead" - to describe his Democratic challenger.

Polls have consistently shown Clinton far ahead of Lazio among black voters, who made up 9 percent of the electorate in 1998. A Marist College poll released Oct. 13 had Clinton with 95 percent of the vote among likely black voters. With the undecided black vote at 5 percent, that left Lazio with zero percent support. The poll had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

That Marist poll found Clinton at 48 percent among Protestant voters with Lazio at 46 percent. In 1998, Schumer took 51 percent of the Protestant vote to D'Amato's 48 percent.

"This is New York politics," Marist pollster Lee Miringoff said Thursday. "And, if you're going to wade into ethnic politics, make sure you get it right."