So now it's Little Ricky instead of Bad Rudy against Hil the Carpetbagger. That's how New Yorkers see the dramatic turnabout in the contest to elect their new senator.
Little Ricky is the dismissive nickname the Hillary Clinton camp has given to Rick Lazio, who this weekend will be confirmed as the Republican to fill the gap left by the sudden retirement from the race of an ailing Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But Lazio will be no pushover and he wants the job just as much as Hillary, so much so that he intended to challenge Giuliani for the Republican nomination until he was persuaded to back down by the party establishment.
But those who saw the abrasive mayor as the ideal candidate to take on the formidable Hillary are now hailing Lazio as an even better bet. Even before a Giuliani burdened with prostate cancer and an adulterous affair decided to stand down, the Republicans were worried that he did not have the kind of commitment needed to fight off the determined First Lady.
Lazio had sensed this and within hours of Giuliani's announcement, he had chartered a jet and was launched on an intensive two days campaigning in upstate New York. He set a record last Sunday by appearing on five morning political chat shows, the ones that Mrs Clinton has so far avoided.
But then Lazio needs all the publicity he can get, as he has nothing like the name recognition of Hillary Clinton outside his own Long Island congressional district which he has represented in the US House of Representatives since 1992. In that year, with few resources, he amazed the pundits by beating the wealthier Democratic incumbent, Tom Downey, who had been in Congress for 18 years and was seen as a fixture.
At 42, the handsome Lazio, with flashing white teeth, an attractive blonde wife and two young daughters, is the kind of candidate campaign managers dream of.
There seem to be no skeletons waiting to fall out of his closet. Asked if he has any drugs or health problems, he says: "I'm clean as a whistle."
He is an Italian-American Catholic who is "happily married and from what I hear goes to church regularly," said a Republican colleague. The Republicans are also ready to boost Lazio's war chest, which at $4 million is about a quarter of what Mrs Clinton has amassed. "This is jihad," a Republican strategist, Jay Severin, is quoted as saying. "This is a holy war. For Republicans there is no higher calling" than defeating the wife of Bill Clinton. "Money will not be a factor."
Lazio, who trailed Mrs Clinton in the polls by 46 to 32 per cent last week, has already closed the gap.
The problem for the Clinton campaign is how to switch gears from confronting the moody, short-tempered Giuliani, whom people loved or hated, to taking on a boyish opponent who is made for television.
Lazio is already contrasting his deep New York roots with his opponent's "outsider" status.
"I'm the real thing. I don't have to try to be someone else. I was born here. I went to school here. I fished in these waters. I clammed in its bays. I graduated from our schools . . . You can tell from my accent that I'm a lifelong New Yorker."
As for Chicago-born, and longtime Little Rock, Arkansas, and Washington resident, Hillary Clinton, she is a "limousine liberal", sneers Lazio, who unlike him can also call on Air Force One whenever she needs to travel.
To emphasise his point, Lazio travelled on the Manhattan subway system this week chatting up voters. His opponent usually travels around the city in an armoured sedan accompanied by several Secret Service vehicles.
The Clinton campaign has started attacking Lazio's conservative record in Congress and is portraying him as a puppet of former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Lazio was a protege of Gingrich and supported his 1994 Contract with America but Gingrich is now yesterday's man and even President Clinton ended up supporting about 70 per cent of the measures in the contract.
Lazio's conservatism does not go as far as total opposition to abortion and he has voted for some gun control measures, so Mrs Clinton has to choose her targets carefully.
She is trying to find "issues" on which they clearly differ.
Her aides say Lazio voted to limit funding for school lunches and aid for disabled children and to abolish the Department of Education.
But he is identified with a popular reform of the public housing programme in New York.
Now the Republican Leadership Council has gleefully pointed out that President Clinton publicly praised Lazio in 12 statements over the past year, including a radio address. The President, for example, thanked Lazio for his work for the economically disadvantaged, breast cancer victims and the physically disabled.
In fact, the more Lazio's voting record is examined, the more it becomes apparent that his political career to date has been aimed at capturing a New York Senate seat. And Little Ricky is not going to let that prize be easily snatched from him.