Though she’s not well known statewide, Jeanine Pirro could potentially make Hillary Clinton work a little bit in her Senate re-election race. In principle, Pirro fits the perfect profile for a Hillary opponent — a moderate, pro-choice woman. This allows her to portray Hillary as too liberal and neutralizes any advantage Clinton might gain with women, especially on the choice issue. Plus she has the pledge issue on her side and could raise millions from direct mail if the race is close.

But the problem is that Pirro is not necessarily as a very strong candidate. That has set the initial storyline for the press, as we saw today in the New York Times story on her announcement, which — as Ian McDonald pointed out to me — contains a couple of jabs at Pirro for being unprepared and less than forthcoming. Check out this lead:

Decrying Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “empty promises,” Jeanine F. Pirro got her 2006 Senate campaign off to a fiery but rocky start today, broadly attacking Mrs. Clinton in a speech but struggling with questions about abortion, taxes, Iraq and her husband.

The NYT reporter also timed a pause in the middle of the speech when Pirro was missing a page in her text – yikes:

Ms. Pirro appeared poised during her first interaction with reporters today, even during a 32-second pause, mid-speech, as she searched for a page of text. “Could I have Page 10?” she asked an aide, Michael McKeon, who provided the text and said later that she had been writing until the last minute and left that page in another room.

Pirro is also getting bad press for flip-flopping on past issues and dodging questions, particularly about her husband, who apparently has a checkered past. Not a good start. If this becomes the storyline — rather than critical coverage of Hillary — Pirro has no chance.