One never talks to the press, and the other threatens not to but can't quite stop. One works exclusively in his socks and eats only fried food, and the other is a rogue and a connoisseur. One builds a campaign around a single, simple slogan and the other is the master of a million nuanced insinuations.
And in the last week of the New York governor's race, the strategists for the two main candidates are as different as the television commercials they have devised for their clients. For George E. Pataki there is the reclusive Arthur Finkelstein, and for Mario M. Cuomo the unavoidable David Garth.
Mr. Pataki, on the defensive after riding high for months on anti-Cuomo sentiment, is on a final, furious counterattack, accusing the Governor of trying to "buy this election" with cynical deals. Mr. Cuomo, having reaped the effect of his ads' mordant depictions of Mr. Pataki as a hand-held instrument of Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, is mostly upbeat, with commercials featuring endorsements from figures as diverse as Bill Clinton and Lee Iacocca and his own thoughts on the future.
Campaigns are won or lost by candidates, but countless aspects of this one bear the stamp of the consultants, from Mr. Pataki's steadfast reluctance to say too much about himself to Mr. Cuomo's feisty new alliance with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, another Garth client. For good or ill, Mr. Pataki's campaign is almost entirely a creation of Mr. Finkelstein, while Mr. Garth's role is much more complex.
"Finkelstein is 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," said Philip Friedman, a Manhattan consultant who got his start working for Mr. Garth.
"Garth believes that if you're too negative, people will blame you; if the press doesn't give you a fair shake, you can't win no matter how good your ads are, and -- particularly in New York -- if you don't have a message that is sophisticated and complex, people won't take you seriously."
Mr. Cuomo was a famous figure long before he hooked up with Mr. Garth last winter, though his experience of campaigning was deeply influenced by a loss to another Garth client, Edward I. Koch (for mayor in 1977), and a victory over the same man (for Governor in 1982). In the 1977 race, Mr. Cuomo taunted, "What hath Garth wrought?"
By contrast, four-fifths of voters say they still do not know enough about Mr. Pataki, a freshman State Senator from Putnam County, to judge whether he would be a good governor, for all the millions Mr. Finkelstein has spent to argue that it is "time for a change."
Not that everything Mr. Garth did has worked, either. He is the first to admit that $3 million worth of ads this summer lauding the Governor's accomplishments, like passage of a seat-belt law, improved Mr. Cuomo's favorable ratings not one whit. And he credits younger aides with devising the ad that may have shifted the momentum: linking Mr. Pataki and Mr. D'Amato with the Paul Simon song, "You Can Call Me Al," the first Garth ad in 30 years of politicking to use music, to which Mr. Simon granted free rights.
Even now, candidate and consultant fight enough that Mr. Garth would not make the harshest ads some Cuomo advisers wanted, linking Mr. Pataki to right-wing groups, and left that task to the State Democratic Party instead.
On the other side, Mr. Finkelstein's strategy for the campaign -- which boils down to "It's Cuomo, stupid!" -- seems almost entirely responsible for Mr. Pataki's still-hazy public persona, which has left the Republican nominee vulnerable to Mr. Cuomo's attacks.
The candidates came to their consultants by different routes. Mr. Pataki's reliance on Mr. Finkelstein is a result of the nominee's political alliance with Mr. D'Amato, whose three winning Senate campaigns were all masterminded by Mr. Finkelstein. Mr. Cuomo's relationship with Mr. Garth was premised in part on the political allies and former clients that Mr. Garth, the closest thing to a modern political boss, might bring to the battle.
"This is truly a battle of titans, two very strong willed, very focused, very determined, very brilliant guys," Roger Stone, a Washington-based Republican consultant who cut his teeth working for Mr. Finkelstein. "David is a pioneer of television politics, the first man in America to understand that when you buy tons of TV time, people will get it."
And Mr. Finkelstein? "Arthur is focused, focused, focused," he said.
A criticism of Mr. Finkelstein, a polling expert, is that he tries to graft the strategies that have worked for conservative candidates -- from Senator Jesse Helms to Mr. D'Amato -- onto his current candidate, whether or not they fit. His slogan about Mr. Cuomo, "too liberal for too long," is almost identical to Mr. D'Amato's attack on Robert Abrams in his Senate race two years ago as "hopelessly liberal."
"I think he's basically sort of a mad scientist," said John Fossel, chairman of Oppenheimer Funds, "and a scientist he is. He really understands numbers."
Mr. Finkelstein polled in Mr. Fossel's unsuccessful Republican Congressional campaign in Westchester County in 1982. "We had a knock-down, drag-out over whether busing was an issue in Westchester. His polls told him it was. I said, 'I don't think it is, but if it is, it isn't to me,' and we didn't use it."
In 1992, before he went on the attack against Mr. Abrams, Mr. Finkelstein spent months running ads promoting Mr. D'Amato's constituent service, and many politicians say he should have done more to sketch in Mr. Pataki this year.
A criticism of Mr. Garth is that he is stubborn, and has a volcanic temper, though he can be the soul of impish charm when he wants to. In this campaign, he has sometimes stroked the very same reporters whom he accused of liberal bias against Mr. Giuliani last year.
Aides said Mr. Garth has tangled especially with the Governor's top aide, Andrew J. Zambelli, and campaign manager, John Marino, who argued for earlier, harsher attacks on Mr. Pataki, while Mr. Garth resisted until Mr. Cuomo insisted.
"Our positives did not move the Governor's numbers, and I wish they had done more," Mr. Garth said in a telephone interview. "But they helped provide a reservoir of good will for him that's never changed, and I hope pays off."
At another moment, he was sardonic. "You know me," he growled good-naturedly.
