Gov. Paterson formally launched his campaign Saturday for a job he plainly doesn't want to do.
He says loudly and passionately he's committed to running the state for four more years, but his actions tell a different story.
If he were truly serious about being New York's chief executive, why does he often roll into the office at 10 a.m. and leave before 5 - as the New York Times reported Friday in its long-awaited profile?
If he were really focused on solving the fiscal crisis, why install an underqualified former girlfriend as deputy director of his Washington office - and compromise his ability to get help from the feds?
Why couldn't his staff track him down for three hours on a Thursday evening after a major plane crash in Buffalo? His explanation is that he was asleep. Doesn't he have a phone?
Being governor of New York is hard. Doing it properly means putting in long hours. It requires being on call 2-4/7. It demands mastering reams of data and policy reports, calling endless meetings, making countless speeches to rally the public and relentlessly twisting arms in Albany.
And - despite occasional bursts of energy and flights of rhetoric - Paterson keeps showing he's just not up to it.
This was the true bombshell of the Times piece - which, contrary to rumors, mongered no scandals, but painted a devastating picture of an isolated, disengaged, mailing-it-in governor.
A governor who cancels speaking engagements without explanation. Who leans on old friends with skimpy credentials as his top advisers while keeping agency heads at arm's length. A governor who lingers with big shots in the Hamptons when his aides are pushing him to get out and meet regular people across the state.
A governor who faces a long-shot battle for the Democratic nomination, yet blows his skimpy campaign funds on fancy dinners at Le Cirque and The Water Club and a personal trip to Florida.
The signs of Paterson's less-than-impressive work ethic were there from his first weeks in office, when he was called upon to negotiate a $120 billion-plus budget.
Facing a steep learning curve and wily, seasoned legislative leaders across the bargaining table, Paterson skipped out of the Capitol not once but twice in the thick of negotiations. First, to celebrate his wife's birthday and again to catch Opening Day at Shea Stadium.
The result, unsurprisingly, was that the Legislature rolled right over the rookie governor and went on a spending spree.
Since then, the gap between Paterson's big talk and small accomplishments has grown ever wider.
He won the support of many New Yorkers by advocating a strong, fiscally conservative response to the recession, but he repeatedly caved to pressure from lawmakers and special interests. Spending, borrowing and taxes have pushed relentessly skyward.
He dramatically demanded sweeping ethics reform at the Capitol, but submitted his proposal too late to get a serious hearing from lawmakers, made only a token effort to sell it, then vetoed the Legislature's weaker bill.
Paterson's Albany remains as corruption-prone and lawless as ever.
He resents the moniker "accidental governor," yet it fits a guy who, through a fluke of history, was thrust into a job he never wanted, wasn't prepared for and had no clue how to handle.
As he admitted last year, being governor "isn't what I signed up for" when Eliot Spitzer plucked him out of the state Senate - with, as it turns out, minimal vetting - to be his running mate.
It's not what he's cut out for, either. And he's unlikely to keep it beyond Dec. 31 - judging from his weak poll numbers, meager fund-raising and the damningly faint praise he gets even from supporters.
NyDaily News
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