Arthur Jay Finkelstein (May 18, 1945 – August 18, 2017) was a New York state-based Republican Party (GOP) consultant who worked for conservative and right-wing candidates in the United States, Canada, Israel, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe over four decades.
With his brother, Ronald, Finkelstein ran a political consulting and survey-research firm based in Irvington, New York. His specialties were polling, strategy, message, media, ad placement, and advising on general campaign management.
Early life and education
Finkelstein grew up in a lower-middle-class Jewish family, living in Brooklyn's East New York section until age 11, then in Levittown, New York, and later Queens. He and his two brothers attended local public schools; Finkelstein ultimately graduated from Forest Hills High School. Their parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe, and the father worked as a cabdriver and did various jobs in the garment trade. While a student at Columbia University, Finkelstein interviewed and helped produce radio programs for author/philosopher Ayn Rand, and was a volunteer at the New York headquarters of the Draft Goldwater Committee in 1963–64 (the famous "Suite 3505"). He eventually earned a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Queens College in 1967.
Career
1968–76: Buckley, Nixon, Helms, and Reagan
In 1968, Finkelstein did behind-the-scenes election analysis for NBC News, part of the network's team working under former Census director Richard M. Scammon and exit-polling pioneer Irwin A. "Bud" Lewis.
In 1969–70, he worked as a computer programmer in the Data Processing department of the New York Stock Exchange at its offices on 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan. During this period, he was a familiar face in Greenwich Village, where he often argued politics from a street-corner soapbox. In his spare time, he aided State Senator John Marchi in his unsuccessful Republican-Conservative campaign for Mayor of New York City in 1969.
F. Clifton White, mastermind of the Draft Goldwater Committee, was Finkelstein's political patron and consulting partner in the early 1970s in the firm, DirAction Services. The young pollster's first electoral success came at age 25 in 1970, with the independent Conservative campaign of James L. Buckley for senator from New York. This was one of several New York statewide contests where he was able to maneuver his clients to victory in three-way scenarios. Buckley won a plurality upset victory over GOP incumbent Charles Goodell and favored Democrat Richard Ottinger. Of that election night, Buckley later wrote, "By 10 pm, ... Finkelstein (my volunteer analyst who called the final results within one-tenth of one percent based on a Sunday-night telephone survey) assured me that I had won." Finkelstein encapsulated Buckley's message in the catchphrase, "Isn't it about time we had a Senator?"
Finkelstein's work in New York led to his serving in 1971-72 as one of several pollsters for President Richard M. Nixon's re-election campaign developing sophisticated demographic analysis.
The 1972 election also saw the first of his three victorious campaigns to elect Jesse Helms as U.S. senator from North Carolina. After the election, Finkelstein worked with Helms political aides Tom Ellis and Carter Wrenn to establish a permanent conservative organization, the National Congressional Club, which lasted until 1995.
Finkelstein and White went their separate ways in the mid-1970s, and he founded his own firm, Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates (often later shortened to AJF & Associates). In the 1976 presidential primaries, White supported Gerald Ford, while Finkelstein worked for Ronald Reagan's insurgent campaign.
He helped Helms's Congressional Club turn around the faltering Reagan effort with a victory in the April North Carolina primary. His work continued in the subsequent Texas primary. "Finkelstein had been a key figure in 1976, when he helped orchestrate Reagan's campaign-saving comeback in North Carolina" which was crucial in Reagan's further political advancement.
