Hillary Gets Nod From RFK Jr.

N E W   Y O R K, Sept. 6 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton is getting a boost from the son of the last out-of-stater to win a Senate seat in New York.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late senator who was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, endorsed the first lady’s Senate bid in an outdoor campaign event today at the 79th Street Boat Basin in Manhattan.

“I believe Hillary will give our state and our communities and our nationthe kind of environmental leadership that New York State is famous for,” said Kennedy, a lawyer who has been advising Mrs. Clinton on environmental issues.

Mrs. Clinton said she was “honored to be here today with Bobby Kennedy,” adding that she has been grateful “for his commitment to protecting and preserving our environment.”

Kennedy is the chief attorney for Riverkeeper, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Garrison, N.Y., that has worked to clean up the Hudson River.

Kennedy Criticizes Lazio

Kennedy also took time today to bash Mrs. Clinton’s Republican rival, Rep. Rick Lazio.

“Rick Lazio can’t point to a single instance in which he hasever demonstrated environmental leadership on any environmental issue,” Kennedy said.

In an interview with ABCNEWS today, Kennedy said Lazio “went along with the anti-environmental positions in the ‘Contract With America’ which if passed, would have eviscerated 25 years of environmental law in this country.”

But Kennedy did acknowledge writing a letter to Lazio to thank the congressman for his support of efforts to save New York’s watershed.

Raising money today in Alabama, Lazio jokingly called the endorsement a “real surprise.”

On whether the historic race reminds him of his father’s run for Senate, Kennedy told ABCNEWS his father “inspired the same kind of reaction with people either despising him or loving him.”