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GOP Rep. Sue Kelly won't leave office until January, but she may have ended her political career Sept. 30, 2004. That was the day she voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage – and caught the attention of a *:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />*:namespace prefix = st1 />Westchester County constituent, Adam Rose.
The openly gay real estate developer son of a legendary builder, Rose, 47, would ultimately sink half a million dollars — an extraordinary amount even by the standards of cash-rich American politics — into defeating Kelly.
"I woke up one day and discovered that my member of Congress had voted to prevent me and my partner from marrying each other," Rose said last week. "I became incensed."
He resolved to do "anything I could do to take her out."
Kelly, who represents the city's northernmost suburbs, lost last Tuesday to Democrat John Hall by a slim 2% margin.
Her loss came as a surprise even to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which had largely ignored Hall's bid. Hall ran an energetic, grass-roots-driven campaign, and he benefited from a Democratic wave. But everyone from MoveOn.org to Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert has claimed credit for helping the musician — best known for the 1970s pop hits "Still the One" and "Dance with Me" — to victory.
Hall also benefited, however, from the continuing power that a single, wealthy individual with nothing at stake beyond his personal beliefs wields in American elections. Rose's money produced a series of harsh television and radio attacks in the final weeks of the race.
No one in the district, however, made the connection between the marriage vote and the massive campaign against Kelly, run through an independent group called Majority Action, which hit her for taking contributions from oil companies. The group also linked her to the scandal over former Florida GOP Rep. Mark Foley's relationship with teenage pages.
"They were basically calling her a coddler of pedophiles," her campaign consultant, Jay Townsend, said bitterly. "It was legal, but it was filthy politics, and nobody up there knew where it was coming from or what the purpose behind it was."
According to filings with the IRS, Rose effectively underwrote Majority Action's campaign against Kelly, giving a $500,000 check to the group Sept. 29, and persuading friends and relatives to contribute tens of thousands more.
He spent in a few weeks half of what Hall spent for his entire campaign. He was Majority Action's largest individual donor, and Majority Action spent more in Kelly's district than in any other, according to the group's executive director, Mark Longabaugh. Before Rose went on the attack, he invited Kelly to the home in Lewisboro he has shared with his partner since 1994. She came alone on Feb. 4, and glanced at the 47-acre property, complete with outbuildings and domestic staff.
She told him she had backed the amendment in part because of the scruples of her Orthodox Jewish constituents in the enclave of Kiryas Joel. She pledged to win back his support by pushing for other gay-friendly issues — in particular an end to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
Rose contributed what he could to Hall, and helped him raise more money. And then, in September, he called Majority Action. "I'm this guy in New York you've never heard of and I want to do anything I can to beat Sue Kelly," he recalled saying. "I'm sending you $500,000. I need your address."
On Election Night, he swung by the victory party of Hall, who supports same-sex marriage. Then he drove home and watched the returns on television, elated as Kelly's loss became clear. (The defeat came, ironically, in part from Rose's money and also in part from the decision of Kiryas Joel to back the Democrat.)
"I was really happy, because I felt that the American system really works," Rose said. | 
