Kathleen Troia McFarland

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Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland (born 1952) was deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs at the Pentagon from 1982 to 1985 under President of the United States Ronald Reagan and speechwriter to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. McFarland is said to be a protégée of Henry A. Kissinger. McFarland is a Manhattan resident and is married to Alan Roberts McFarland, an investment banker. She is mother of five (Andrew, Gavin, Fiona, Luke and Camilla) and grandmother of three.

McFarland ran as a Republican in the New York United States Senate election, 2006, for the seat now held by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was defeated by former Yonkers mayor John Spencer.

1 Education
2 Politics
3 2006 Senate campaign
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Education

George Washington University, B.A. in Chinese Studies
Oxford University, B.A., M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science but did not complete dissertation due to joining the Reagan Administration

[edit] Politics

In a memo sent to Republican strategist John McLaughlin, dated July 15, 2005, McFarland detailed her political beliefs as well as a campaign strategy to unseat Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, whom McFarland was planning on running against before her challenge to Hillary Clinton.

McFarland describes herself as "a liberal Republican" who is pro-choice, pro-stem-cell research, and pro-gay rights. McFarland notes that her family is Episcopalian, but that she is not an Evangelical Christian.

[edit] 2006 Senate campaign

Main article: New York United States Senate election, 2006

McFarland has never held elected office. She ran as a Republican for election to the United States Senate in the 2006 election, for the seat now held by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who successfully ran for re-election. The Republican primary was on September 12, 2006.

On May 31, 2006 McFarland's Republican opponent, John Spencer won the endorsement of the state Republican Party organization, with 63 percent of the vote. He did not achieve the threshold of 75 percent needed to prevent McFarland from gaining an automatic position on the primary ballot, and so he and McFarland faced each other in the September 12, 2006, Republican primary.

Spencer called on McFarland to step aside after the vote, but McFarland told CQPolitics.com she had no intention of withdrawing from the race.^[1]

On June 7, 2006, the New York Post reported that McFarland had received more than $25,000 in contributions from at least 20 people who had previously been large donors to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Howard Dean.^[2] However, charges of a Democratic "conspiracy" to complicate Spencer’s route toward challenging Clinton were quickly debunked, as the New York Daily News reported that the donations in question had been made while McFarland was running for Congress, months prior to her announcement for the Senate seat.^[3] The Spencer campaign, which was shown to be trailing the Clinton campaign by over 30 points in several polls conducted in May 2006, highlighted the alleged “conspiracy” in a press release some five days after the charge had been refuted.^[4] On August 22, 2006, McFarland announced that she would be suspending her campaign until further notice after her daughter was caught shoplifting.^[5]

[edit] Relationship with family

New York magazine ran portions of a letter McFarland wrote to her parents in 1992 as her brother was dying of AIDS. In the letter she accused her father of physically abusing her. According to her other brother, Tom Troia, McFarland's mother managed to read half a page before breaking down, asking family members never to show it to the father, who had suffered a heart attack a year before. Tom said, "My first impression when I read it was that she was trying to kill my dad."^[6]

[edit] Claims of Clinton "spying" on her

The New York Post reported that McFarland told a crowd of Suffolk County Republicans that Hillary Clinton had hired people who were "spying through her window" with cameras, implanting listening devices wherever she travels and "flying helicopters" over her house at night to take pictures and scare her.^[7]

[edit] Debate with John Spencer

McFarland engaged in a debate with fellow Republican Senate hopeful John Spencer at Pace University in Manhattan. She accused Spencer of engaging in adultery and nepotism and said it spoke to his lack of credibility to serve in office. McFarland said: "That's something that, in 1998, the Republican Party impeached President Clinton for exactly the same behavior. If you'd been in the military, you would have been court-martialed. If you worked in the federal government, you would have been subject to indictment."^[8]

Later in the debate, McFarland said, "You brought up your wife, and I must tell you that that's not a personal issue. That's a professional issue. Because when you were mayor of Yonkers, you had an affair with your secretary while you were married to somebody else. You tripled her salary and made her your chief of staff. You were living with her. You doubled your own personal income. You got financial gain from that. And you had two children."