The White House didn’t want him. New York’s politicians certainly didn’t want him. And now it appears we’ll never know if voters wanted him: New York Gov. David Paterson is expected today to announce he won’t seek re-election, but he won’t be resigning from his office either. Must’ve been that lack of gay support, eh?
That leaves open the Democratic nomination for AG Andrew Cuomo — who supports gay marriage, though it’s unclear whether he’ll be as active in its endorsement as Paterson.
terrwill
David Paterson: The Fat Lady ain’t singing yet, but she surely is working on a song selection…… : p
GayGOP
I may be a Republican, but I honestly liked Gov. Paterson, and thought he did a decent job with New York.
Now, however, I’m looking for a job somewhere else. Far away. Alaska is too close. Hell, China’s too close. This is the man who built up the housing bubble as Clinton’s HUD secretary. Bush may have seen it blow up, but Cuomo presided over the start of the housing bubble, and the subprime mortgage crisis. In fact, he readily encouraged both of those things. And now he’s going to be my home state’s governor. McDonnell may be bad for gays, but at least he is somewhat competent. Virginia, here I come.
reason
Seems like all of the governors that actually advocated for gay marriage and other rights in office are being shown the door: David Paterson, Jon Corzine, and Deval Patrick may be next. The Vermont governor Jim Douglass who vehemently opposed gay rights gets soundly reelected in a fairly progressive state.
Chitown Kev
@reason:
But are they being rejected BECAUSE of gay marriage and other rights is the question.
RS
In fairness, I’m not sure the White House had any personal beef with him. I think they were worried about his electability and concerned his candidacy could return the Governor’s office to the Republicans. If his poll numbers were higher, I don’t think they’d have any personal qualms with him. At least, I haven’t heard of anything.
terrwill
Fat Lady was further along in the process than we thought……. : o
Paterson came out of the gate strong. He was appointed to replace Gov.Black Socks and right away got in front of all the infidelity stories by admitting he wandered as soon as he took office………He was for the Gays getting hitched. And kinda pushed for it…..
He began to gain traction with the poll numbers when he began to bite back at the most dysfunctional elected body in United States history, Albany. That I think turned everyone on him…….And that phone call to “ask” his #1 man’s GF who supposdly got smashed like a pumpkin on Haloween not to press charges ended his journey……….Son of a Cuomo up next……
tjr101
This is kind of bitter sweet for me. David Paterson is very likable and is a fierce advocate for the community but at the same time he’s buggled almost everything else. He’s quite unpopular in NY state and I feared he would lose and we’d end up with a Republican governor i.e. Giuliani or Rick Lazio (thank god Giuliani is not running).
By him bowing out this clears the way for Andrew Cuomo who I like and is very popular in the state. I don’t blame Paterson for the mess in the state he did try his best, I do blame his predecessors Pataki and Spitzer who had so much potential but just couldn’t keep his pants zipped up.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
I think that Governor David Paterson deserves a standing ovation from the Gay New York State Population. Like Mayor Gavin Newsom, he stuck his neck out for us on Gay Marriage and got nowhere. I hope he spends the rest of his time in office cleaning up the corruption in New York which is out of control in Queens and the Bronx, especially in the Democratic party, unfortunately from some of his own “allies.” We badly need Ethics reforms and the most exemplary transparency which would dis-empower Shelly Silver, the Assembly Leader with too much power and other legislators’ graft including questionable consultancy remuneration from various firms which are not disclosed.
Paterson was not elected to Office, rather having to fill the shoes of the fallen Sheriff Of Wall Street who was also known as the Steamroller and rather authoritarian, Paterson’s approach was more like a Sally Field complex of “You Like Me? You Really Like Me?” which may be too nice for the nasty job of #2 in New York (we know who rules with an iron fist!) It was graft of fellow legislators (Aqueduct Casino) and his own wrong-headed intervention in an aide’s criminal past which proved too much to sustain a Gubernatorial race against the well-financed son of a former popular Governor, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the New York media.
Sure, I wanted him to not run but it was because I didn’t want Republican Rick Lazio to win and become Governor. Paterson’s biggest enemy was within his own state, Wall Street which was the catalyst of our economic malaise and subsequent world meltdown and has dragged all Democrats out of office kicking and screaming, and will continue to in races where they appear to be incumbents as we face a state fiscal crisis of a huge budget deficit and high unemployment.
If we weren’t in such a time of anti-incumbency, we could negotiate a lot with AG Andrew Cuomo who is on record as supporting Gay Marriage. His history at HUD may be his most contentious aspect of his own Clintonian-style economics which worked well until the housing bubble burst starting in 2006 but it would be a reach to go back into a popular presidency picking at the bones when the eight years following were much more disastrous beginning with Corporate meltdowns, sub-prime mortgages and the worst terrorist attacks on U.S soil, right here in our own city.
Cuomo is riding high on poll favorability because we are at a time where we look toward strong executives (even Giuliani appeared to be one!) as there is too much ground to lose in the Empire State if we don’t get behind Andrew Cuomo for Governor.
With Senator Schumer maybe facing a tough challenge as Senior Senator, new Senator Gillibrand who is running for a seat Paterson appointed her to, has vulnerability will be decided at the end of next week after an unsuccessful start to Harold Ford Jr’s possible Primary challenge to her which is not looking good. Her facing well-funded Mortimer Zuckerman of US News and Report would be a bruising, nasty fight yet Gilly can play with the GOP boys and defeat them as she has proven upstate. My personal pet peeve is reform of the MTA, and removing the Board of Directors and putting it under State or City management which they’re new Chief seems intent on doing but at what cost to us?
This is our road to New York State Equality but we should join Fight Back New York on Facebook to challenge anti-gay Marriage candidates and keep informed on the case from the Village Voices’ Tom Robbins, the best journalist on local politics.