Politics on the Hudson

Now that he’s not running for governor, Gov. David Paterson burned through $2.5 million of the roughly $3 million he had in his campaign coffers in January, his campaign-finance report shows.

Of that, $700,000 went to the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where Paterson has been represented by high-profile attorney Theodore Wells Jr. in the investigations into his administration.

Paterson also doled out $166,000 to the crisis management firm, Sard Verbinnen, who so happens to be the firm Eliot Spitzer turned to during the prostitution scandal that led to his resignation.

Paterson was also paying about $14,000 a month for rent at his Manhattan campaign offices.

Paterson has $615,967 in the bank, and has had a history of spending his campaign cash at a fast rate even when he was running for office.

Paterson is still under investigation over whether he helped cover up a domestic-violence case involving his former top aide, David Johnson, and whether he lied about receiving free tickets to last year’s World Series.

The investigations led Paterson to drop out of the governor’s race in February.