Democrats Want First Black Gov of NY to Backdown and Let a White Man Run
ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Gov. David Paterson isn't bowing to the latest pressure to scrap his plans to run for the office he inherited 18 months ago.
A senior Democratic adviser close to Paterson said Sunday that the state's first black governor is still planning to run and is focusing on the state's fiscal crisis. The adviser spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak for Paterson.
The governor's office has refused to comment since reports Saturday revealed that national Democratic leaders hoped to persuade him to drop out of the 2010 race. That would pave the way for the far more popular Andrew Cuomo.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday that he spoke to the White House and Paterson about his concern that Democrats do what is best for the people of New York. He wouldn't say whether he was advising Paterson to drop out.
Obama’s wise move to sack New York Governor David Paterson
New York State Governor David Paterson opening...
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Late last night the Times broke the story that President Barack Obama has put the stage hook out for David Paterson, the New York Lieutenant Governor who moved into the governor’s mansion after Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution-related disgrace:
The decision to ask Mr. Paterson to step aside was proposed by political advisers to Mr. Obama, but approved by the president himself, one of the administration officials said.
“Is there concern about the situation in New York? Absolutely,†the second administration official said Saturday evening. “Has that concern been conveyed to the governor? Yes.â€
The administration officials and the Democratic operative spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions with the governor were intended to be confidential.
The president’s request was conveyed to the Mr. Paterson by Representative Gregory W. Meeks, a Queens Democrat, who has developed a strong relationship with the Obama administration, they said.
via Obama Asks Paterson to Quit New York Governor’s Race – NYTimes.com.
Call me one who favors this move.
Paterson is a figure who is closer to President Gerald Ford than anyone the Democratic Party has ever produced. Like Richard Nixon’s successor, no one ever imagined that Paterson would actually serve as governor. He was a smart guy who had roles he was capable of fulfilling, but if he had run for governor all by himself, he never would get within artillery distance of Albany. And like Ford, he has turned out to be something of a bumbler, more easily caricatured than respected by the public he governs.
Obama and his team in the White House, no doubt led by Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff who helped build a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives that is more tenuous than it looks, are right to worry that quite a few upstate Democrats in Congress could be sent packing if Rudy Giuliani runs for governor. The state has not had a strong Republican gubernatorial candidate with a national image in years. A guy like Giuliani running for governor will persuade donors around the country that money added to his campaign coffers is also an investment in a stronger Republican presence in Washington. The growth of coattails that Republican insurgents can ride between presidential elections is not a scenario that Obama can tolerate heading into what is sure to be a tough 2012 re-election.
Additionally, if the state’s voters cast ballots against Paterson’s ham-handed leadership as much as for Giuliani’s bluster, it could be bad for Senator Kristen Gillibrand. Gillibrand, the Congresswoman who filled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, could face a much more serious challenge in her special election in 2010 if Paterson stays in office. The GOP has not yet found a strong challenger for Gillibrand, but if Giuliani appears ascendant in New York, the National Republican Senate Committee could very well persuade a wealthy carpetbagger to pull a Hillary or a Bobby Kennedy and challenge her in the Empire State. If Democrats aren’t motivated to come out and vote, that could be a setback for the Democratic majority in the Senate as a whole.
But that still leaves a broader problem that Obama clearly needs to address: calming down the shake-up in blue states that his administration has caused.
Obama’s administration practically plundered many states of some of their leading Democratic politicians. Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebellius both gave up their governor’s seats (Napolitano to a Republican successor). Leading Democratic Senators like Clinton and Colorado’s Ken Salazar, now Interior Secretary, also took positions that left their seats vulnerable. And with Obama’s home state harmed by the Blagojevich scandal, which implicated both the governor’s mansion and the Illinois Senate delegation, that left Democrats with a lot of catch-up to play building organizations going into the mid-term elections.
Paterson has failed to staunch the bleeding in New York that Spitzer’s ouster caused. His standing down will represent the application of a tourniquet to a rather gaping wound in the Democrats’ body politic. It’s a wise move for President Obama and demonstrates that in spite of all the troubles he’s had in the short-term over health care, his staff are keeping their eyes on the ball for 2010. That ought to give Democrats some hope that the 1994-style knock down some are predicting will not come to pass.
