While a student at Columbia University, Finkelstein interviewed and helped produce radio programs for author/philosopher Ayn Rand,[3] and was a volunteer at the New York headquarters of the Draft Goldwater Committee in 1963–64 (the famous "Suite 3505").
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.
"[14] Passage of the post-Watergate Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) amendments, and the subsequent 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, drastically altered the rules by which Presidential and Congressional contests were waged.
A central idea behind the strategy was to expose the liberal words and actions in Washington of elected officials, usually senators, whose moderate or conservative public image at home was at odds with their actual voting record.
[18] NCPAC hit its peak in 1980, operating IEs in six states, its ads and organizing efforts helping to topple liberal Democrats in Iowa (John Culver), Indiana (Birch Bayh), Idaho (Frank Church) and South Dakota (George McGovern).
[5] In 1980, he engineered[27] the improbable Senate victory of Long Island supervisor Alfonse D'Amato over incumbent Jacob Javits, another three-way contest where the Democrat (Congresswoman Liz Holtzman) was favored.
[46] In the early 1980s, Finkelstein began working on international polling projects, including for Canada’s National Citizens Coalition and Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party after their 1985 election loss.
[78] Brooklyn native Finkelstein had long advised local and state party organizations in New York (e.g., the powerful GOP committees of Westchester,[79] Nassau[80] and Suffolk Counties,[81] then dominant in all three suburban areas).
In a rare public appearance in February 1991, after the GOP's poor national showing in the November 1990 elections, he reminded a conservative audience that Reagan prospered through unabashed ideological appeals that drew crossover votes from sympathetic Democrats.
[2] D'Amato's comeback win had demonstrated the Republicans' window of opportunity in New York City's outer boroughs, among working-class Catholics[95] and (especially) Jewish voters angered by Democratic leaders' handling of the Crown Heights violence and subsequent incidents.
This time, Giuliani ran a more effective race, riding to victory on a wave of discontent with incumbent David Dinkins, with even stronger turnout among ethnic Catholics and Jewish voters than in 1989, and in the same areas where D'Amato had done well a year earlier.
[115] Following Election Day 1994, D'Amato and Finkelstein were handed new challenges and opportunities, as the 14-year incumbent was named by his Senate peers as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), one of the four permanent GOP campaign operations in Washington.
[119] By late 1995, unrelenting Democratic/press attacks, and his own missteps, had turned Gingrich into a pariah through much of the country (2-to-1 unfav-fav ratio in surveys); meanwhile, Dole was running for President, and allowing ambition to overshadow his Senate work.
[120] D'Amato remained personally devoted to Dole, but Finkelstein and the NRSC team urged Republican Senate candidates to cut loose from unpopular national leaders and carve their own individual profiles on issues.
[120] D'Amato's decision to divorce his wife after a long separation[138] and announce his engagement to a young socialite[139] did not help his favorable ratings, while others recalled his mock-Japanese impression of O. J. Simpson case Judge Lance Ito in 1995 (for which he was forced to apologize on the Senate floor).
[140] D'Amato raised a record $26 million for the 1998 campaign, and Finkelstein went to work early shoring up his client's "Senator Pothole" image of close attention to local needs and the problems of individual New Yorkers (as he had done successfully in 1992).
)[150] In the 2000s, Finkelstein spent more time working overseas than in previous decades, with clients in Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Ukraine and Azerbaijan (the last, in coordination with George Birnbaum.
As enthusiasm among Republican voters faltered in the final days (after revelations of George W. Bush's 1976 DUI conviction), GOP coattails and McCollum's slim lead disappeared, and Nelson was elected, 51% to 46%.
[159] A 2004 open seat in Florida's 14th Congressional District allowed Finkelstein to help create a political dynasty, as he steered State Rep. Connie Mack IV to a narrow victory in a four-way primary, then general-election wins in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010.
[160] Finkelstein served as strategist for Mack's Senate campaign in 2012;[161] a late entrant in the primary, the Congressman won the GOP nomination with 58%, but was defeated by incumbent Bill Nelson by a million votes in the Obama re-election year.
[183] Connie Mack IV's 2007 marriage to Congresswoman Mary Bono led to Finkelstein's aiding her sharply contested (but successful) California campaign in November 2008, defeating Democrat Julie Bornstein in Obama's triumphant year.
Republican Sen. Rod Grams eventually condemned Finkelstein's negative ads against Wellstone as excessive; however, his client (former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz) came closer that year than any GOP challenger to defeating a Democratic incumbent.
[188][circular reference] Finkelstein refused the notion he engaged in negative campaigning, a phrase he said connotes false accusations: "It just means that you speak about the failings of your opponent as opposed to the virtues of your candidate"—a strategy he called "rejectionist voting"—a formula based on slogans that disparaged adversaries.
[1] Time magazine in October 1996 reported the Liberal-branding strategy was dubbed "Finkel-think" by leading Bob Dole advisers, and the presidential nominee was (belatedly) employing it against President Bill Clinton.
"[152] Philip Friedman, a Manhattan consultant who got his start working for Finkelstein's frequent Democratic rival David Garth, described the pollster as "the ultimate sort of Dr. Strangelove, who believes you can largely disregard what the politicians are going to say and do, what the newspapers are going to do, and create a simple and clear and often negative message, which, repeated often enough, can bring you to victory".
[41] Republican strategist Roger Ailes, who worked with Finkelstein on numerous races in the 1980s, described "Art" as "a polling guy with creative talents",[2] John Fossel, chairman of Oppenheimer Funds, characterized him as "basically sort of a mad scientist".
[193] Finkelstein's office shared a small building with Diversified Research, a separate but related firm that executes telephone surveys and packages their results for political and business consultants (including some media pollsters).
[196] Over four decades, Finkelstein was responsible for the early hiring and training of many successful Republican consultants, operatives and managers—collectively called "Arthur's Kids"[197] or "Arthur's Boys"[125]—including Tony Fabrizio, Alex Castellanos, James Hartman, Craig Shirley, George Birnbaum, Beth Myers, Mitch Bainwol, Ari Fleischer,[1] Carter Wrenn, Kieran Mahoney,[198] Zenia Mucha,[199] Jon Lerner,[182] Rick Reed, Patrick Hillmann,[200] Jim Murphy, the pollster brothers John and Jim McLaughlin,[201] Rob Cole,[202] Ron Wright, and Adam Stoll.
[164] Others who worked with Finkelstein and have gone on to have successful independent careers include Frank Luntz, Larry Weitzner, Charles R. Black Jr., Roger Stone,[203] Chris Mottola,[125]John Heubusch, Barney Keller, Gordon Hensley,[204] and Gary Maloney.
[207][208] Survivors included his husband, Donald Curiale, of Ipswich and Fort Lauderdale; two daughters, Jennifer Delgado of Danvers, Mass., Molly Finkelstein of Alpharetta, Ga.; two brothers; and a granddaughter Maryn Baird-Kelly.