Finishing up his remarks as he announced the school supplies funds that the state began distributing from a mixture of stimulus dollars and a grant from George Soros in August, David Paterson explained why he took the issue so personally.

“When children come to school that aren’t prepared, they feel separated from the rest of the class. How do I know? I’ve been there,” he said. “When I went to public school, I had large-print books delivered to the school for me to read. They weren’t always delivered by the beginning of the year. For a couple of weeks, I had to listen in the classroom while everyone else read. You have no idea what a humiliating feeling that is. But the books finally got there, and that’s why I’m standing here.”

What sounds at first like the kind of thing of which afterschool specials are made really strikes at the essence of David Paterson: If he had just gone to a school for the blind like most people with his level of disability, he would have never had to wait for textbooks. He would have learned how to read braille, he would not have to spend hours locked away memorizing recordings and could be out doing most of the normal things politicians do to ingratiate themselves to voters. He has in many ways overcome his disability, but to a lot of people, in the process, he developed an overblown sense of what determination can do.

“He’s had more challenges in his life than some people, and Andrew Cuomo is not as much of a challenge as being blind for 55 years,” explained one person close to the administration.

Politicians have rebounded from bad polls before. Michael Bloomberg was at 24 percent in 2003, in the middle of his first term, but ultimately cruised to victory in his run for a second term.
In the years since, he has convinced quite a few people that he should be allowed to overturn the rules to be able to run for a third, and remains a heavy favorite to win four more years this November.

Paterson, though, has neither the time nor the money that Bloomberg did—he has, in fact, been lagging in fund-raising with the collapse of both the economy and his popularity. He also has the realistic constraints brought on by his blindness: When Eliot Spitzer was having a bad stretch, as he did on more than one occasion long before the Emperor’s Club came along, his staff marched him from one event to the next, whipping up positive attention and good press. Paterson cannot. 

There is something terrible in admitting this, even to the staunchest Paterson fans. But politics is full of people exploiting unfair advantages. A compelling presence face-to-face, he simply cannot put himself in front of enough voters to budge the polls—even his latest newsletter from the new “Governor Paterson On Your Block” program has only one public event on it, on one block. Another politician would have notes to remind him of whether he was in Nassau or Suffolk. Paterson has been known to make this parochially offensive mistake. Another politician would be able to pretend to recognize people as he waved at them across the room. Paterson can only pull in a few people for his tight hug at each place he goes.

He already has a skimpy public schedule, with many days at a time going by without any announced event. A good number of the press releases he issues are to announce that he has ordered the flags lowered to half-staff. As the election year comes upon him, juggling this and a campaign schedule to do the barnstorming around the state will generate even more difficulties. Unfair as it may be to have political disadvantages because of his disabilities, people around him have been anxious about this harsh reality for months.

There is not a governor in the country who has fared well amid the recession, and Paterson has hardly helped his own case. Adrift since Charles O’Byrne was forced to resign, buffeted by association with the cartoonish chaos in the Senate and pervasive sense of Albany dysfunction does not help, but digging the hole deeper, he has often been keeping his own counsel, sometimes just relying on people like his longtime body man David Johnson to be yes-men for whatever decision he has already made.

Convinced of his own cleverness, confident that having good intentions should be enough to win the day, refusing to acknowledge that the reality of his position in government and in the polls means he has to stop himself from doing things like 2 a.m. nightclub visits, and giving staff the impression that he believes much of the antagonism against him is simply subtle racism, Paterson seems to believe that there still is a way to win next year, and that he is going to pull off the magic trick.

Marginal members of Congress have been nervous for months, and in the heat of the summer have begun to step forward and admit their concerns in public. The safer Democrats in the delegation are starting to get anxious too, starting to wonder what Paterson could mean for the Senate Democrats—clearly possessing enough problems of their own without an additional drag on the top of the ticket—whose continued hold on the majority is essential for gracious redistricting when the time comes to lose a seat or two for the 2012 elections. As for the Democratic state senators themselves, the few in competitive districts seem eager to see Paterson gone, and the rest are appalled by the thought of Paterson drag causing them to lose their majority again, or being stuck with a hold on power that remains hinged on Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada. They need more seats, and they need them quickly.

For months, the working assumption among the governor and his staff is that there will not be a primary. Either they will succeed in pushing his poll numbers up to the point where he can keep Andrew Cuomo at bay or they will fail to, and Paterson will drop out of the race. In some ways, the plan is simple: Sure, the Democratic leadership wants to know what he is doing by November, but Paterson thinks he can game things out a little longer than that. Slowly, he will build his polls back up to at least the low 30s, with Cuomo forced to wait, lest he sacrifice his immense goodwill or risk reminding people of the last time he took on an establishment black candidate in a gubernatorial primary. Come January, he will pick a lieutenant governor running mate—and if that person is, as most suspect, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi—will effectively cut into what would be Cuomo’s various bases. With maybe a 10 percent bump, Paterson would move through the early months of 2010 with what will at least look like momentum, enjoying renewed strength in New York City and Long Island that could propel him through a Democratic primary and general election. He will have all but openly dared Cuomo to try messing with him, and left Rudy Giuliani and Rick Lazio for so long not expecting him to be in the race that they will not be quite ready to face him. If necessary, he would fight things out at the convention, taking advantage of his strengths and others’ weaknesses to leave New Yorkers with the choice of whether they want to get rid of their blind, black, personable, funny, incumbent governor, or whether they do not. And then, they seem to think, he shoots the moon, he pulls it off, and somehow ends up taking the oath of office again in January 2011.

Hey, an increasingly smaller group of people insist, it could happen.


Except that very few people seem to want it to happen.

There was ecstasy in the Assembly chamber the day that Paterson was sworn in. The Spitzer specter had been banished, the legislators saw a beloved one of their own thrust into the big job, and the public got to have some comedy and impressions to wash out the taste of a very odd prostitution scandal. But for those who had worked with Paterson, there was fear. They knew how erratic he could be (some just preferred the word “crazy”), they knew how reluctant he always was to tell people no, and they knew how bad he was both at hiring staff and comfortably delegating to them. (Remember the cute story he told in announcing Kirsten Gillibrand’s appointment about having met her when she was pregnant the day of the 2003 blackout, when he was trying to recruit her to run for State Senate in 2004, when he was minority leader? He did that without telling just about anyone at the time, including people involved in DSCC recruitment. The speech in January was the first they had heard of it. More Paterson “freelancing,” they sighed.)

Paterson should be getting credit for warning of the financial collapse from those first moments as governor, the weekend after the Bear Stearns collapse. He was, after all, the first prominent government official to publicly discuss the problem in a major way. He should get the credit, as he subtly reminded people at this year’s New York City Financial Control Board meeting, for getting on television last July to warn that a terrible storm was coming. But he does not. People laughed at what seemed like rash overstatements then, and now do not even remember how right he was on the economy, or how ahead of the pack he was on rallying to get stimulus funding for infrastructure sent directly to the states.

But still, knowing Paterson, they worried. They doubted.

And they have, for the most part, been sad to see their worst fears proved right.

Paterson’s record of the past 18 months has been so bad that even his friends are reluctantly starting to admit they do not want him to be the nominee. They are upset about his impact on the state and the Democratic Party, but more importantly, hate seeing a man they care about continue in a job that he is so ill-suited to do. If only, they say, he had just figured out some way to appoint himself to that Senate seat. That was the job that he really wanted, and which would have fit his skills and temperament. He is a legislator, he is an advocate, they say, but he is not an executive. He does not have the abilities or the personality to do the job.

But there is no clear exit strategy. According to the conventional wisdom of the moment, Barack Obama just needs to pluck Paterson for some plum position—an ambassador to somewhere good, or maybe a cabinet job. Those slots, though, are basically filled, and even if they were not, if there were some great job for Patrick Gaspard to dangle, to have this as an excuse not to run, Paterson would need to get the appointment soon and leave in the middle of his term, which he will not do. The courts may eventually certify Dick Ravitch, but Paterson would be hard-pressed to leave the state in the hands of his appointed-under-a-cloud lieutenant governor. And if some uncertainty about Ravitch does persist, Paterson’s departure would make Malcolm Smith the governor—or maybe by that point John Sampson—or maybe Espada—or Dean Skelos—or someone else, depending on whatever happened in the locked or unlocked Senate chamber the day before.

And so he—and we—are stuck.

No one has been more ready to leap to Paterson’s defense than Rep. Charlie Rangel, who went so far as to respond to a question on NY1 about the governor’s late July nightclub appearance with two women on his arm by asking, “How do we know he wasn’t trying to help these people across the street?”

A few days later, at the Soros-school supplies event, Rangel tried another cutting joke.

“I’m so surprised to see so many members of the press here to cover this story for you governor,” he said, “because I’m convinced that if you were to walk on water, tomorrow morning, the press would report that the governor can’t swim.”

Of course, Rangel is probably right. There has been blood in the water for months, at least since the days when outside consultant Judy Smith traipsed through Paterson’s offices in her long mink coat, pushing him onto Larry King and every other microphone to ruminate and speculate about whom he could possibly pick to replace Hillary Clinton. Smith thought this would raise his profile, make him a national figure. It did, but by way of making him a national punchline. In a potential kiss of death for a politician, his persona with David Letterman, Jon Stewart and the Saturday Night Live writing staff was established: John Kerry was effete, John McCain was old. David Paterson was a doddering fool who was lost, in every way.

That image fed stories that fit the narrative. Those stories, along with the unpopular moves he was making or getting blamed for led to more declining polls, which led to more bad stories. And then worse polls. And then worse stories.

The Senate appointment was the most public display of his problems as governor, but there have been others that have disturbed the people watching more closely, from his ranting about the judicial nomination process which has yet to produce any results to his backing away from a tough budget proposal into a secretive, shopping spree-style budget. The public and the politicians want to see him lead, which is something he has convinced many he is completely unable to do.

“I think to a very large extent, David Paterson has been a victim of circumstances that are not his fault,” said one Democratic official, while adding, “I do think that he’s done some things that have aided the impression that he’s not decisive.”

Paterson is hardly helping stem the tide. The morning of the Soros school event, he finally made the long-awaited, extremely popular mayoral control bill into law, but instead of taking advantage of a pre-set photo-op complete with happy gap-toothed children, he signed it in private, without announcement, along with 79 other bills.

“I didn’t think it needed any kind of public forum,” the governor explained later. “I didn’t think it needed any further amplification from me.”

The missteps keep coming, from the breaking of his own hiring freeze to giving a job to a friend, to the call, recall, then call again of the special election for what was Anthony Semmenerio’s Assembly seat.

(“It was a mistake,” he admitted, somewhat grimly. “And you get a few of those from time to time, and we’re not running away from that.”

But asked after the schools event whether he would reprimand anyone on staff for issuing the proclamation without his permission, he did what he always does when pressed, using a joke to deflect the questions.

“We shot someone the other day,” he said, leaning back in to add, “it was a registered firearm, by the way.”)

“With David, every other day another shoe is dropping,” lamented one occasional Paterson insider. “He’s running out of feet.”

People have gotten used to getting mixed messages from the governor. He routinely walks out of staff meetings where one decision has been made to announce that he is going in the opposite direction. He stormed into the Red Room the night the Senate coup broke in June to declare the events an outrage and demand the legislators go back to work. Then, when reminded by Post columnist Fred Dicker that he did not have the power to order around a separate branch of government, responded quickly, “That’s absolutely right, Fred—I have no place to actually dictate the process.” Two weeks later, he announced that he had asked Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to preside over a special session if mediation between the sides failed, though Lippman privately fumed at the idea that he could ever have stepped across the branches of government and had even put together a list of constitutional problems this would entail.

More and more is falling through the cracks. More and more is coming out garbled, as prominent staffers and people with heavy portfolios have departed and others have declined offers to replace them, leaving the administration’s already overworked staff stretched ever thinner. When Disability Assistance Commissioner David Hansell decided to depart for a job in Washington in the spring, for example, he waited three weeks in vain for Paterson or Secretary to the Governor Larry Schwartz to respond to his resignation letter. With the clock ticking and the move to D.C. imminent, Hansell sent a last message to the Second Floor: He was locking the door on Friday, and he had no idea who would be there on Monday. The position remains vacant, though the governor’s office says a search for a replacement is underway.

But to his old friends and allies, the worst and most depressing part of what is starting to be known as The Paterson Breakdown is watching the once reliably progressive leader unafraid to stake out bold positions crumple into himself in his effort to appeal to a statewide electorate. He continues to claim an interest in passing new legislation on property taxes, ethics reform, power for jobs, expanded unemployment insurance and gay marriage, but he has backed away from sure statements or deadlines on most. Overcome by confusion, legislators—aside from those who know how to get a message onto his special voicemail tape (and even they have their doubts about really getting through)—do not know how to get in touch with the governor directly or who on his staff to call with a priority. For all the consultants he has on the campaign payroll, few people know whose advice he takes to heart. For those who do hazard a guess, their opinions rarely coincide.

Take what happened in mid-August, when Paterson called a press conference in Manhattan to announce new legislation aimed at people who drive drunk with children in the car.

“I don’t think it is prudent to capitalize on a major tragedy that is high-profile just for receiving attention,” he said, launching into a recap of the intoxicated mother who killed her daughter and nieces along with passengers in another car on the Taconic. Showcasing his impressive memory by recounting a list of statistics, the governor listed the bill’s provisions and said he had received a favorable reception from the legislative leaders, though he expected there to be some negotiation.

According to Paterson Press Secretary Marissa Shorenstein, the bill was submitted just before the press conference began to the central staff of both houses of the Legislature. But among the people who still had not seen any text several days later was Republican State Sen. Chuck Fuschillo, who had introduced his own very similar bill the day before and said that he received no outreach from Paterson’s office before or after the governor introduced his version.

By then, another controversy was erupting, as Assembly Member Richard Brodsky and State Sen. Bill Perkins, chairs of their respective authorities committees, fumed that Paterson appeared to be backing away from his commitment to signing their bill reforming the operations and structures of authorities in the state. He had carried the legislation when he was in the State Senate, they reminded him, and as he himself noted when asked about his take on the bill at a hot press conference in East Harlem to announce a new housing project.

“In the current legislation, I would say that 90 percent of it is excellent,” Paterson said, explaining that he was concerned with elements of the bill which would split fiduciary responsibility between the executive and legislative branches.

“We’re talking to them about perhaps having me sign the bill and then bringing forth chapter amendments that would restore single accountability to the process or having me veto the bill and then we re-pass it in September with some changes in the law,” he said, though when asked to clarify if that meant he would not sign the bill in its current form, responded, “I didn’t say that.”

The next day, Brodsky and Perkins sent a letter to the governor complaining that a letter from governor’s counsel Peter Kiernan made a fundamental attack on the provisions of the bill.

“After months of indications that the governor was where he always had been, we get a serious effort to gut the bill from the governor’s counsel,” Brodsky said, detailing the frustration.

Even more galling, Brodsky said, was that Kiernan’s objections were strikingly similar to the resistance which Bloomberg has expressed to the legislation. On top of that, Kiernan’s failure to call him in advance of issuing the letter, Brodsky said, was “unprofessional.”


Paterson has been having trouble getting help—even though he has reconciled somewhat with his old political sensei, Bill Lynch, the relationship remains rocky. Famed fixer Harold Ickes, who had been sitting in on strategy meetings months ago and been expected to take a larger role in the re-election effort, never came on board.

Which begs the question of who, if and when the time comes, will really be able to put an arm around the governor’s shoulder and tell him the game is over. The conversations so far, like those that seeped out of the July meeting of labor leaders in Kingston, have done nothing to convince him, by his account.

“I think that in a political party, the best way to have these conversations is privately, before they become public—that’s what the loyalty of the party deserves. And therefore, since none of these individuals called me, I’m not really sure how accurately they were reported,” he said. “I heard about this big meeting of leaders that was supposed to be doing the same thing a couple weeks ago, and then everyone at the meeting says they weren’t doing anything like that at all.”

The euthanasia will begin, most assume, with Rangel or some other prominent leader suddenly having very nice things to say about Cuomo, in a warning shot to Paterson. The suggestions will get louder and more pointed as time goes on without him listening, which he will not do.

Eventually, someone will get the message through to one of the two men: his father, Basil, or Carl McCall. They will carry the message: enough. Game over. 

At first Paterson will resist his father, determined to outdo the man who may have given him his genes and last name, but could not get elected lieutenant governor himself. Their relationship is strange, with David alternating between uneasy competitiveness and staunch filial deference to Basil. He will not readily submit to his father trying to get him out of a position of power, nor will he want to hear the bell rung by the man who failed to become the state’s first African-American governor, but was able to send Cuomo packing in their primary.

However it happens, Democrats hope the governor eventually sees the writing on the wall.

“He’s saying he’s running because he hopes images change and polls change and he can’t throw in the towel now,” said one high-ranking Democrat. “David Paterson is a smart guy and he’s been around New York politics a long time. If he feels that he cannot win, I think he will withdraw.”

He could make a dignified exit, complete with masterful Sherman-esque speech. He could return to being himself, and with the Democratic majorities in the Assembly and Senate, have a full year of passing a wish list of progressive Democratic laws. For Paterson, the experience could be liberating. For the state, it could be transformative. For people who like the governor personally and are aligned with where he once was politically, it would be a dream come true.

This would mean relenting on his plans and dashing his own resolve, two more things that have never been Paterson strengths. But without the burden of trying to win another term on his back, he could do more in one year as a selfless lame duck than in a year or four more as a reviled leader under fire. There would be more experiences like the Gay Pride Parade on Fifth Avenue in June, filled with signs declaring “We Luv Our Guv” and the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” blaring from the speakers.

Or he can forge ahead with the plan to run next year.

So far, that is generating at least public sympathy, even from those who have a personal stake in seeing him edged out of the nomination.

“His popularity is low, but he is our governor, and therefore we must respect him and we must help him,” said former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who came to a press conference in Manhattan to endorse Bill de Blasio for New York City public advocate but ended up being hounded by questions about his son’s prospects in light of Paterson’s troubles. “Why? Because he’s servicing us, because he’s trying to help us and we should contribute to that. What would you think of a person who said, ‘Oh no, I’d rather see him fail, even if it hurts the state, because I have a friend who I want to see replace him.’ What would you say to a person like that?”

As for his son, the former governor tried to downplay polls which show the attorney general 50 points ahead of Paterson, though he did respond to a question of whether he wants to see Andrew run for governor by saying, “If he runs for governor, I want to see it,” and answered a question about whether he would be all right with a primary between them by admitting, “I don’t know. I’d have to know a lot more.”

“Matilda and I have people coming up wherever you go—if you’re in Italy, if you’re in Greece, wherever you are—when people recognize you as a Cuomo, they come up and talk about how much they like Andrew,” he said. “It’s not people saying he should be the governor. It’s people saying, ‘We like what he’s doing.’”

Paterson’s polls seem to show the exact opposite. But maybe there is enough time, if he can hold on and keep everyone from jumping ship.

“If he hits 50 by Feb. 1, he’s in the game. If he doesn’t, he can stay in the game, but it’s going to be a very big problem for him,” said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “If he hits 50 in November 2010, it’s too late.”

As to how any uptick might happen, given all the potential pitfalls in the sessions and budgets and everything else ahead, Sheinkopf shrugged.

“Too many imponderables,” he said. “It’s not a good time to be David Paterson.”

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ABOVE: David Paterson has so few defenders that Rep. Charlie Rangel told him,” “I’m convinced that if you were to walk on water, tomorrow morning, the press would report that the governor can’t swim.” (right) Photos by Andrew Schwartz


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Sympathy Across The Hudson From One Accidental Governor To Another
By Joe Walker

Being an accidental governor does not have to be a disaster. Just ask Richard Codey.

In his role as New Jersey State Senate president, Codey has been next in line to the governor since 2002. Whenever the governor leaves the state, even if only for a few hours, Codey steps in, as he has done more than 100 times.

In the unpredictable world of New Jersey politics, the understudy role always keeps him just a scandal or surprise away from the main stage, whether the governor is out of town or laid up for a month after being crumpled in a car accident.

But Codey’s longest stint in the top job was the 14 months between Jim McGreevey’s sudden resignation in July 2004 and new Gov. Jon Corzine being sworn in at the beginning of 2006.
That makes for at least one clear parallel Codey sees between himself and Gov. David Paterson.

“We both became governor without campaigning and raising money because two people had sex,” Codey said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Yet while Codey has maintained an approval rating above 50 percent for the entirety of his tenure, Paterson has been consistently struggling in the polls.

Codey had some built-in advantages. Under New Jersey law, Codey was allowed to remain as president of the State Senate even while serving as governor. 

“Codey was the second most powerful guy in Trenton when he became the first most powerful guy in Trenton,” explained Alan Marcus, a New Jersey political consultant.

As the state’s longest-serving legislator, Codey could call on his colleagues for help and guidance when the opportunity arose to step into the executive office.

“It felt like the adults were in charge again when Codey took over,” said New Jersey Assembly Member John McKeon.

That made for a much less steep learning curve, Codey said, than what was faced by Paterson, whose experience was mostly in the Senate minority.

“Paterson’s experience in the Senate didn’t prepare him at all to be governor,” Codey said.

But there were similarities: Like Paterson, Codey displayed a knack for squeezing laughs out of the public. The Christian Science Monitor called him the “Rodney Dangerfield of politics.”
He formed a collegial relationship with local media and he received relatively positive coverage during his term.

And like Paterson, Codey has had something of an up-and-down relationship with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. When Codey began his 14-month tenure, the two distrusted one another after Codey, while still a senator, offered to build a stadium for the Mets in New Jersey. 

“I thought he was an asshole, to be perfectly honest,” Codey said of his initial impression of the mayor.

During the transition months between the McGreevey and Codey administrations, George Zoffinger, president of New Jersey’s sports authority, denied Bloomberg’s helicopter access to a landing pad at Giants Stadium. Bloomberg had requested access so that he and his daughter could attend a Jets game. Zoffinger suggested Bloomberg check the bus schedule, which instigated a war of words in the tabloids.

But then when Codey assumed the governorship, he went out of his way to smooth things over.

“I don’t know Bloomberg, so I call up his press secretary and I say, ‘You tell the mayor that I’ve arranged for [Zoffinger] to let him land the helicopter there whenever he wants and I apologize for that idiot,’” Codey recalled.

“So, next thing I know, 15 minutes later, Bloomberg calls me and says, ‘I appreciate what you did and, you know, the guy who runs the sports authority for you is a jerk-off.’
I said, ‘You don’t need to tell me that, I know that.’”

Codey has endorsed the mayor in his re-election campaign.

“He blew me away with his intellect and his ability to cut right through the red tape, identify a solution and go after it,” he said.

The candid politician who today still introduces himself in interviews as “Governor Codey,” has sympathy for Paterson, whom he considers a friend.

“I was the minority leader for four years. That was a piece of cake, that was easy as hell, you just criticize the governor when you thought he deserved it and, you know, that was it, because you didn’t have any real power,” he said.

“I once said on the radio that [Paterson] has an advantage over other politicians in that when he’s out in public, somebody gives him the finger, he can’t see it.” Codey said, adding that he cleared the joke with Paterson first.

After a change in the state constitution, New Jersey will this year for the first time in its history elect a lieutenant governor, almost certainly bringing his reign as the occasional governor to an end.

But should the governor and lieutenant governor both be forced from office, Codey will be waiting to take the helm. Stranger things have happened in New Jersey.