Paterson on the rebound

Conventional wisdom in Albany -- at least until very recently -- holds that Gov. Paterson cannot win re-election next year (based on largely on what have been his abysmal poll ratings), and needs to bow out so that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo can become the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. The governor obviously doesn't buy it, and I don't either.

His new push today for Tier 5, while vetoing a routine public pension sweetener, shows the governor continuing to appeal to the middle and right -- which goes along along with his support for a school property tax cap and (theoretically) spending restraint (in the process-driven abstract). Meanwhile, he's pushing for gay marriage to the delight of social liberals, and impressing goo-goo types by calling for an actual vote on that in the Senate even without a guarantee of victory, as well as by taking on the Public Integrity Commission and proposing ethics reform. If the economy picks up, I see Paterson running and winning. But his predecessor's column today is not sunnily optimistic on the economic front -- (in fact, Spitzer is starting to sound like the curmudgeonly Saratoga Springs-based writer Jim Kunstler of Kunstler.com).

Comments

[Brian]

The hard part is that it's hard to see where the upward push is going to come from. Rhetorically, he's acting like an economic conservative, which is not the best way to appeal to the unions who are the Dems base. But in practice, he's vacilated enough to make fiscally conservative independents and moderate Republicans be skeptical about his commitment, his ability to implement his rhetoric against the unions and Silver or both (the 9 pct spending increase in the budget, his spending a year categorically rejecting the millionaires' tax only to cave at the last minute). I've agreed with him on some things and not on others and I gave him the benefit of the doubt a lot longer than most people but the overall impression I have is of a governor and staff who are incredibly disorganized and lacking in any sort of broader road map. The NY Daily News article a few months ago about how he ran his Senate minority office seems to confirm that.

[Bob Conner]

TypePad
I think the great majority of the many critics of the budget failed to say exactly where they would have spent a lot less or found money to substitute for the millionaire's tax and other revenue enhancers, and I don't think the result was as bad as the press indicated, given the circumstances of a severe national recession.

[Brian]

Don't get me wrong. I largely agree with your assessment of Paterson. I just disagree with your assessment of where public opinion is likely to go. Whenever my dad would criticize Paterson's cuts, he could never answer me when I said what would you do instead. The only thing I ever heard was the millionaires' tax which maybe was necessary but was hardly anywhere near sufficient in its own right. The easy sound byte that only addresses a small part of the overall budget gap.

I have some sympathy for Paterson and agree with your implication that no governor was ever going to come out of this budget process unscathed. It's impossible to do what needs to be done without pissing a lot of people off, even if his tactics been lacking. That said, he's still pissing people off, necessary as it may be, and it's hard to see the economy rebounding quickly and strongly enough to vindicate him in time for him not to be pushed. I think he's in the unfortunate position of doing the dirty work and taking the crap that's going to make his successor look good.