Arthur J. Finkelstein

Arthur Jay Finkelstein (May 18, 1945 – August 18, 2017) was a New York state–based Republican Party (GOP) consultant who worked for conservative and right-wing candidates in the United States, Canada, Israel, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe over four decades.

Finkelstein and his brother Ronald ran a political consulting firm in Irvington, New York, where he focused on polling, strategy, messaging, media, and campaign management.

Early life and education

Finkelstein grew up in a lower-middle-class Jewish family, living in Brooklyn's East New York section until age 11, then in Levittown, New York, and later Queens. He and his two brothers attended local public schools; Finkelstein ultimately graduated from Forest Hills High School. Their parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe, and the father worked as a cabdriver and did various jobs in the garment trade. While a student at Columbia University, Finkelstein interviewed and helped produce radio programs for author/philosopher Ayn Rand, and was a volunteer at the New York headquarters of the Draft Goldwater Committee in 1963–64 (the famous "Suite 3505"). He eventually earned a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Queens College in 1967.

Career

1968–76: Buckley, Nixon, Helms, and Reagan

In 1968, Finkelstein did behind-the-scenes election analysis for NBC News, part of the network's team working under former Census director Richard M. Scammon and exit-polling pioneer Irwin A. "Bud" Lewis.

In 1969–70, he worked as a computer programmer in the Data Processing department of the New York Stock Exchange at its offices on 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan. During this period, he was a familiar face in Greenwich Village, where he often argued politics from a street-corner soapbox.