Politics on the Hudson

   In an appearance on the Don Imus radio show this morning, Gov. David Paterson talked about his son being questioned by police yesterday, whether President Obama might campaign for him, his choice of Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate, and being ridiculed in a Saturday Night Live skit.

   The governor said his son, Alex, who is 15, was questioned and released yesterday because he and a group of kids had been playing a dice game. “The principal said the kids play this  game all the time…no money was involved. It wasn’t gambling and it was just one of those situations,” Paterson said.

   “I think he’s a little annoyed. He feels he didn’t do anything wrong and there hasn’t been anything documented that he has,” Paterson said.

   Alex and a friend had possession of a debit card that wasn’t theirs, the governor said. “Apparently he was with a friend and the friend found this debit card and they thought it was thrown away because it was by a garbage can in the subway. You know, teenagers will do that. They’ll carry things. It would have been better to try to find the person and return it to him, but no one had put any charges on the card, so it was a non-issue,” he said.

   Paterson, who is legally blind, criticized Saturday Night Live for its recurring skit about his disability. He joked that the show should have former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin back on if it needs to boost its ratings. 

   “Look, I can take a joke, and I can take a joke about my disability. I make fun of my own disability, but I thought that the persistent focus on that issue, that that’s the only thing I’m known about, and by the way I don’t bounce off walls and if anyone at Saturday Night Live would like to have me on, we could find out. Maybe I could bounce a few left hands off of them. And the reality is that the people who are put in the position, nearly 70 percent of blind and legally blind people in this country are not working, so these kind of insinuations that are made on Saturday Night Live, on the lower frequencies of society, this is what stops small business owners or bosses from hiring people who would be effective employees.”

   Paterson told Imus, who is broadcast on WABC-AM radio in New York City, that he was still happy with his pick of Gillibrand. Spitzer criticized Paterson’s pick this week and said he never would have chosen Gilllibrand.

   On the buzz being created by former Tennesee congressman Harold Ford Jr., now a New York resident who may challenge Gillibrand, Paterson said he would support Gillibrand but would back Ford if he won a Democratic primary.

   “Harold Ford was an excellent congressman. I supported him when he ran for Senate,” the governor said of Ford’s failed campaign in Tennessee a few years ago.

   But earlier this week, when he was told Ford has been criticized by women’s-rights groups for his positions on same-sex marriage and reproductive rights, Paterson suggested Ford should find another state to run in.

   On President Obama, Paterson said he has never really known if it was Obama or people working on his behalf who said he shouldn’t run for governor this year.  The governor said he doesn’t think the president would have a problem campaigning for the Democratic candidate, and he intends to be the candidate.

   Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, is widely expected to run for governor but hasn’t announced his candidacy.

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