Arthur Finkelstein

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

With his brother, Ronald, he ran a political consulting and survey-research firm based in Irvington, New York. Finkelstein's specialties were polling, strategy, message, media, ad placement, and advising on general campaign management. In 2013, he was honored by the American Association of Political Consultants, and named to its Hall of Fame, "the highest honor that the working members of the profession can bestow upon a colleague."

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 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 from Queens College in 1967 in economics and political science.

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.

...
Wikipedia