EW YORK - The first ''campaign'' ad in the New York Senate race will air tonight in a peculiar form - as a Pizza Hut commercial during the opening game of the World Series.
The 30-second spot features a woman who looks more than a bit like Hillary Rodham Clinton, praising the company's Big New Yorker pizza, then exclaiming, in a southern drawl, ''How do I know so much about New York pizza? 'Cause, New York, I wanna be your next senator!''
The camera then flashes to two police officers, one of whom says, in an exaggerated New York accent, ''$9.99! What do they think this is? Arkansas?''
The real-life Clinton (who doesn't have a drawl), is the all-but-declared Democratic candidate for Daniel Patrick Moynihan's US Senate seat. The Pizza Hut commercial clearly plays on the most common criticism against her - that she's a ''carpetbagger'' who has never lived in New York.
New York 1, the city's all-news cable channel, revealed another angle that has raised Democrats' eyebrows. Pizza Hut's parent company, Tricon Global Restaurants, has contributed $2,500 to the campaign of Clinton's likely Republican opponent, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. And a Tricon board member, financier Kenneth Langone, is co-chairman of Giuliani's fund-raising committee.
''Quite a set of coincidences,'' observed Howard Wolfson, Clinton's campaign spokesman.
Jay Allison, a spokesman for Pizza Hut, laughed off the concern. ''We're not coming down on any one side,'' he said. ''It's all meant to be very lighthearted. We're in the business of selling pizza, not making political statements.''
However, asked if Pizza Hut had plans to make commercials that parody Giuliani, Allison replied, ''No. Not yet.''
Langone, too, denied any association with the commercial. ''The first I heard of this ad was a phone call from a reporter asking me for a comment,'' he said. ''I had no idea it was even created. ... I've never talked to a member of any ad agency.''
The mayor's campaign office also denied any connection to the ad.
The string of denials hasn't stopped the political parties from making hay of the situation.
Jim Jordan of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington said, ''I suspect that eventually, lawyers will look into whether this constitutes an illegal contribution to the mayor's campaign,'' though, he added, no lawyers are on the case yet.
Steven Law, director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued a news release yesterday telling the Democrats to stop ''whining'' and saying, ''Hillary needs to lighten up.''
Then, to hammer home the point, Law noted that other Pizza Hut commercials have featured ''impersonations of Donald Trump and Spike Lee. So what these ads are meant to highlight are famous New Yorkers - and wannabe New Yorkers.''
Actually, previous ads for the ''Big New Yorker'' pizza featured the real Trump and Lee, not impersonators.
Bob Garfield, columnist for Ad Age magazine, said, ''A frightening, substantial number of American television viewers will think this is Hillary Clinton doing a Pizza Hut commercial.''
The White House has long had a policy of objecting to companies using likenesses of the president and his family to endorse commercial products. ''I'd think,'' Garfield said, ''this is waving a big red flag in front of the White House for a cease-and-desist order.''
The first lady's spokeswoman, Marsha Berry, had no comment on the situation.
Garfield also said he thought it unlikely that the ad was intended to have an anti-Hillary side effect. ''I would be stunned if there were any political motivation to this commercial,'' he said.
However, the company's own public relations machine has unashamedly played up the politics. A Pizza Hut news release heralding the commercial is headlined: ''Who Will Be the Next US Senator from New York? Major National Advertiser Capitalizes on Hotly Contested New York Senate Race.''
Larry Mandelker, a Manhattan election lawyer, said the Federal Election Commission probably would not consider the ad a violation of its regulations. However, he added, because ''it sort of says she's a carpetbagger'' - an argument that has emerged as a campaign issue - ''it comes closer to a violation than a lot of other things I've heard of.''
