Poll: Rudy Is Top U.S. Pol; Manhattan Woman Eyes Hillary Challenge

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the country's favorite politician by far, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the country's favorite politician by far, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, reported yesterday as the Gazette was going to press.

Meanwhile, United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible presidential candidate in 2008 but who ran far behind Giuliani in the survey, is getting another Republican challenger in this year's Senate election.

Manhattan socialite Kathleen Troia (K.T.) McFarland, who was in the Reagan Administration, formed an exploratory committee on Monday to raise money for a campaign against Clinton.

McFarland will probably have Governor George Pataki's support, according to insiders who say the governor is not excited by the candidacy of former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, who also wants to take on Clinton.

In the Quinnipiac poll, Giuliani, a Republican who's considered a possible presidential contender in 2008, got a score of 63.5 percent, topping six other pols.

President George W. Bush was at the bottom of the heap at 44.1 percent, followed by Senator Clinton (50.4 percent), ex-President Bill Clinton (56.1 percent), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (57.1 percent), Senator John McCain (59.7 percent and Illinois Senator Barack Obama (59.9 percent) making the first-term black lawmaker the top Democrat in the poll.

Senator Clinton has polled far ahead of any Republican thus far in statewide surveys. It remains to be seen how her and McFarland's numbers will stack up. "[McFarland] is not getting into this race as a sacrificial lamb", declared Bob Davis, an upstate GOP leader who's McFarland's biggest backer.

McFarland, a Park Avenue matron who was a Pentagon spokeswoman under President Ronald Reagan, says there's support for her to get on the primary ballot against Spencer in September.

According to media reports, she already has built up a campaign war chest of about $400,000, which she was planning to use to run against Congressmember Carolyn Maloney (D-Queens/Manhattan) this November.

Spencer has the backing of the Conservative Party.

-John Toscano