This is, after all, the age of the consultant crackup. Recently, it hasn’t been the candidates under ethical scrutiny; it’s been their high-flying gurus. Who better to take them on than a glib Beltway thinker like Choate? There are plenty of targets. There’s former presidential adviser Dick Morris, forced to resign after a prostitute charged that he had revealed White House secrets to her during a yearlong affair. And Boston magazine disclosed that legendary GOP strategist Arthur Finkelstein is a homosexual, a label Finkelstein then publicly acknowledged. The ar- ticle also noted that the 51-year-old consultant has advised some of the country’s leading anti-gay-rights politicians. Meanwhile, the Star and the National Enquirer skewered Roger Stone, a GOP operative and unpaid adviser to Bob Dole. The charge–which Stone vehemently denies–is that he and his wife, Nydia, a former model, solicited sex partners on the Internet and in swingers’ magazines.

Behind this phenomenon is a cultural collision: tabloid journalism has fixed its paparazzi lens on political pros. Sure, consultants have seen trouble before. In 1993 Ed Rollins was pummeled for his claim–which he later retracted–that he suppressed black turnout in order to get New Jersey’s Christine Todd Whitman elected governor. But that was an on-the-job fumble, soon forgotten. Now private foibles are in play, and the campaigns understand this. Dole immediately distanced himself from Stone, a Washington fixture who was an aide to Nixon at 18 and Reagan at 27. Stone insists the current tabloid reports are wrong and suggests they may be the work of a disgruntled man–and possibly others–angry at him and his wife.

These days consultants can be a bipartisan problem. Consider Morris. NEWSWEEK has learned that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr plans to subpoena former Washington hooker Sherry Rowlands to testify about her conver- sations with the fallen guru. Rowlands’s lawyer has indicated to Starr that his client will cooperate. Expect Morris himself to be subpoenaed, say lawyers familiar with Starr’s probe. It also emerged that Morris avoided signing a disclosure form while he advised President Clinton–which enabled him to hide a book deal with Random House that’s now worth $2.5 million. The money will be a windfall for Morris, who has had problems in the past with tax collectors and business creditors. A search of public records by NEWSWEEK reveals property liens related to unpaid federal-income-tax bills totaling more than $275,000 for various calendar years between 1986 and 1993. (Those liens were withdrawn after Morris paid up.) Private creditors have come after Morris, too–including a travel agency ($60,000), a car-leasing firm ($13,000) and even Federal Express ($2,772). Morris defends his financial history, noting that ““I do not owe any money in state and federal taxes . . . [and] those liens that were assessed and paid reflect only my obligations and in no way reflect any of my wife’s.''

Unlike Stone and Morris, Finkelstein is still in the arena. Sen. Al D’Amato, who made Finkelstein the chief strategist for the national GOP’s campaign to keep the Senate, said that his consultant’s sexual orientation is not an issue. But D’Amato backs gay rights, even in the military. Past Finkelstein clients are less tolerant, including Sens. Jesse Helms, Don Nickles and Bob Smith. When news broke that Morris, the architect of Clinton’s family-values campaign, used a call girl, Republicans accused the president of hypocrisy. Now Democrats could level the same charge about Finkelstein if the GOP goes in for gay-bashing this fall.

By November, it probably won’t be sex but money that affects how voters see the consultants around the candidates. Perot and Choate will no doubt take on the ones who’ve done business with foreign countries. Among them: Dole adviser (and former Stone business partner) Paul Manafort, whose firm helped a slew of international clients with poor human-rights records, including Nigeria. Plenty of Clinton advisers have ties overseas, too: both deputy national-security adviser Sandy Berger and Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor were partners in law firms with lucrative Japanese clients. For most voters, these kinds of liaisons are what’s really unseemly.