for Senator William Roth, and later served as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. All three were singled out by Roll Call newspaper in 1996 as among national "Politics' Fabulous Fifty." The NRSC faced several challenges beyond their control, many emanating from the two dominant Republicans of 1995-96, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. The Oklahoma City bombing had given President Bill Clinton an opportunity to marginalize his opponents, and slowed the momentum of the reform-minded Republican Congress. 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. In mid-1996, Dole resigned from the Senate to campaign full-time, but by then he was behind Clinton to stay, and eventually polled less than 41% nationwide. 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. D'Amato remained a champion fundraiser and the committee found new legal ways to deliver assistance to Senate campaigns and local parties. The NRSC paid particular attention to blunting the wave of millionaire political unknowns (e.g., Tom Bruggere in Oregon, Elliott Close in South Carolina) recruited that year by the Democrats. It shored up many endangered incumbents, including Bob Smith (New Hampshire), John Warner (Virginia), 75-year-old Jesse Helms (North Carolina) and 94-year-old Strom Thurmond (South Carolina). On Election Night, as Clinton defeated Dole by nearly 9 points and Gingrich's House Republicans lost a net 8 seats, Senate Republicans won open seats in Alabama, Arkansas and Nebraska, while losing South Dakota. In a poor GOP year, the D'Amato–Finkelstein NRSC had gained a net 2 seats (and narrowly missed another gain in the Max Cleland – Guy Millner race in Georgia). Finkelstein was not a consultant to the Dole Presidential campaign, despite his closeness to several of its top staffers. But, in the election's waning days, Time magazine reporter Erik Pooley detected the New Yorker's influence on strategy, writing: For Arthur Finkelstein, this week might have been a vindication: Bob Dole finally started labeling Bill Clinton a "spend-and-tax liberal," using a crude but often effective strategy known as "Finkel-think" by some Dole advisers, because the secretive Republican strategist has been deploying it on behalf