Lt. gov’s biggest job: deference
|  Lt. Gov-elect David Paterson is going into his new job with his eyes open.
 “Great men often have great flaws,’’ he said in an interview on WROW-AM radio in Albany today. “They often have a paranoid, delusional view of anyone who ever gets any attention.’’   Paterson, now the minority leader of the Senate, takes over as Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer’s number two on Jan. 1. He was talking in the interview about the near-invisibility of the current lieutenant governor, Mary Donohue, who rarely made a splash in her eight years as George Pataki’s second-in-command.    “There was a tremendous amount of anxiety and paranonia surrounding the position’’ when she took over, he said, because the woman Donohue replaced – Betsy McCaughey- had such bad relations with Pataki that she switched parties and tried to run against her former boss in 1998. (She lost badly in the Democratic primary.)   It remains to be seen about how big a role Spitzer will allow him to play, but he is already adept at deferring to his new boss.  When asked if the Spitzer administration will try to oust disgraced Comptroller Alan Hevesi next year, Patreson begged off.  “As they say at Walgreen’s, you’ll have to ask the manager about that one,’’ he said. |
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Mary Donohue was a defensive pick by Pataki..He was burned
by betsy and so he wanted to make sure he didn’t run into the same problem…Patterson however is smart enough to understand who the people elected governor..he will be
a team player like malcolm wilson was when he served under
former governor rockefeller..However Pataki’s defensive
move was to again pick a non entity for a position which
can be important…justlike many of his picks for
boards and commissions…and that is one of the reason
he leaves with a 30% approval rating, his own party
in shambles, and no chance in the world of being nominated
for either president or vice president
The Consultant:
You make Malclom Wilson sound like a non-entity. In fact, he was 10 time the political wirepuller Paterson could ever dream of being. It was Wilson, a long-time Yonkers Assemblyman and Codes Committee Chair, who led Rockefeller through the State’s GOP County Chairs in 1957 and 1958, instructing him on the day-to-day of Empire State politics. Together, they did a two-man, 62-county roadshow, beginning long before the Wyoming County chairman had any idea who Nelson Rockefeller.
David Paterson is nothing more than a free rider who grabbed the brass ring on his way to an appointed seat in the US Senate, and he knows it. He’ll keep his thoughts to himself and stay out of the grownups’ way.
you misinterpreted my comments..malcolm was indeed
a team player..he was the most knowledgable lt governor
in termes of the operation of state government that
we have ever had…my remarks were directed at
pataki’s failure to have competent professionals
anywhere in important positions including his
choice for lt governor…and it will be my job
this year to bring that message to the people
in new hampshire and iowa so they evaluate
the governor’s quest for the presidency having
the benefit of the opion of one new york republican
who like the governor worked for nelson rockefeller
and in fact had an adjoining ofice…