Hillary's Worst Nightmare?

Ted Forstmann might just be it.

By William P. Kucewicz, editor of GeoInvestor.com and former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

It's a good thing Hillary Clinton doesn't read newspapers very often. Had she taken a look at the New York Times's website before turning in last night, she wouldn't have slept a wink. The Times reports that financier and philanthropist Ted Forstmann — whose keenness of mind is only eclipsed by his generosity of heart — may vie to run against the First Lady for the U.S. Senate seat from New York. No one would present a more formidable challenge to Mrs. Clinton's election chances than the man who does what the author of It Takes a Village only talks about — helping children in need.

If the undeclared Rudolph Giuliani ultimately decides not to toss his hat in the ring — with the breakup of his marriage and his diagnosis of prostate cancer — raising funds to back a new candidate in what will be a very expensive political contest could pose a problem for the GOP. According to the Times, though, Forstmann reportedly is willing to self-finance his campaign — a prospect that could tip the balance in his favor if Republican Party leaders are forced to choose between him and the other would-be candidate, Long Island congressman Rick Lazio.

A graduate of Yale University and Columbia University School of Law, Forstmann is a founding general partner of New York-based Forstmann Little & Co., a private investment firm in the business of acquiring or financing growth companies. Among the more well-known names are Gulfstream Aerospace, Thomson Minwax, Ziff-Davis Publishing, Topps, and Dr. Pepper.

While a tremendously successful investor, Forstmann is probably more widely recognized as the co-founder, with Wal-Mart's John Walton, of the Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF), which provides funds to low-income families so their children can attend the private, public, or parochial school of their choice. CSF made headlines last year when its scholarship lottery drew 1.25 million applicants. The 40,000 winners, who were awarded a total of $170 million in tuition money, came from families with average incomes below $22,000.

From a political angle, the Fund's list of board members is a fascinating read. It's a bipartisan Who's Who of American politics: Erskine Bowles, Senator John Breaux, Barbara Bush, Joseph Califano, Henry Cisneros, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, Martin Luther King III, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, General Colin Powell, Congressman Charles Rangel, Warren Rudman, George Shultz, Andrew Young, and even Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose Senate seat is the one up for grabs.

Forstmann's devotion to disadvantaged children is genuine. Besides being CSF's co-chairman and CEO, he's also involved in the Washington Scholarship Fund, the International Rescue Committee aiding war-injured children, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund of South Africa, the Silver Lining Ranch serving children with cancer, the Boggy Creek Gang Camp for chronically ill children (whose other co-founders are General Norman Schwarzkopf and Paul Newman) and the Inner City Scholarship Fund in New York.

Given Forstmann's charitable endeavors and his bipartisan, multiracial collaborations, Mrs. Clinton would be hard pressed to employ the character-assassination and race-card tactics she has unabashedly used against the often boorish mayor of New York. Worse for the First Lady, Forstmann's unselfish efforts to give needy children a helping hand would make her rhetoric ring more hollow than ever.

Don't misconstrue his many charitable activities, however. Forstmann is no Rockefeller Republican. For instance, he, like Milton Friedman, persuasively argues that the problem with education in the U.S. is the absence of competition. With 90 percent of the nation's children in public schools, he observes, education has become a government-run monopoly. "And as everyone knows," he says, "monopolies produce bad products. Why? When there is no competition, customers have no alternatives. And when customers have no alternatives, customers have to accept whatever a monopoly decides to produce and pay whatever a monopoly decides to charge."

As even this brief excerpt from an Imprimis article reveals, Forstmann is no stranger to sound economics. He knows full well what makes economies grow — and how ill-conceived government policies can nip prosperity in the bud, dashing the hopes of those who aspire to a better life for themselves and their families. And that's why he's so passionate in his defense of free peoples and free markets.

Ted Forstmann is both a kind heart and an intellectual heavyweight — a powerful combination the Clintons simply aren't used to running against. Their spin machine would find it next to impossible to belittle or defame him. And that's Hillary Clinton's worst nightmare. By effectively neutralizing the Clintons' heretofore successful tactics of deprecation, distortion, and disinformation, a Forstmann candidacy would practically force the First Lady to run an honest campaign. And that would mean big trouble for the Democrats.

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