When Eliot Spitzer’s top aides were mulling David Paterson as a potential running mate in the winter of 2005, two people who knew him cautioned that the Albany veteran was a “hard partier.”
They were referring to Paterson’s extramarital dalliances, past drug use and penchant for late-night clubbing. But Spitzer’s people didn’t get the message.
“We didn’t know what ‘hard partying’ even meant,” a former top Spitzer aide confessed to The Post. “Our idea of fun is to go exercise. The thinking was, ‘He enjoys partying — that’s nice!’ ”
The warnings about the then-Senate minority leader were never even passed on to Spitzer, since they seemed beside the point.
“We didn’t understand that it meant women or that it was in any way inappropriate. We didn’t understand the lifestyle going on there.”
SHELLY SILVER, THE SHADOW KING OF NEW YORK
It was just one of a comedy of errors that led to Paterson becoming New York’s accidental governor and that has now left the state government in disarray as he struggles to survive a host of scandals.
The desire for Paterson to emerge as a viable candidate for lieutenant governor was born of desperation.
Spitzer, who was launching a campaign for the 2006 governor’s race from his post as attorney general, had spent four weeks frantically cold-calling leaders across the state, trying to get them to join his ticket.
Out of spite, he had ruled out Leecia Eve, who had worked as a senior policy adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and had launched her own campaign for lieutenant governor that fall.
Eve, an African-American, was being pushed by the powerful Harlem Gang of Four — Paterson’s father, Basil, a former city and state official; Rep. Charles Rangel; former Mayor David Dinkins; and former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton.
“They told him, ‘Eliot, we’re with you, but we want you to take Leecia Eve as lieutenant governor,’ ” said a former top Spitzer administrator.
“He was just nuts that anyone would force him to go in a certain direction. He instantaneously said no to her.”
Spitzer’s aides, meanwhile, compiled a short list of minority women who could balance the ticket. David Paterson wasn’t on any list, let alone the short list.
The contenders included three black women: Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate Troy; former US Attorney Loretta Lynch; and Pamela Thomas-Graham, former CEO of CNBC.
Spitzer worked hard to lure them, but all three turned him down, citing Albany’s ingrained dysfunction, an aide said.
“Albany was too messed up in their minds,” the aide said.
“Eliot called Shirley Jackson three times and called everyone personally trying to engage them,” the aide said.
“Usually, the staff would do that, but Eliot wanted to do it himself. He cold-called everyone to make his pitch. In three or four weeks, he cycled through everyone who was possible.”
Lynch declined to comment for this story, and Graham did not return messages. Jackson said she “respectfully declined” to have her name considered.
After a month of trying, Spitzer was running out of options.
Enter David Paterson.
During a casual meeting in Spitzer’s Manhattan office, the Harlem lawmaker made his move.
“Why not me?” he said.
The request was stunning — he was throwing his own hat in the ring against a candidate that his own father was still endorsing. His wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, had even thrown a fund-raiser for Eve.
“Paterson was being a maverick with the group he was supposed to be tied to,” an insider said.
Spitzer was shocked.
“You’d never believe what just happened,” he recounted to his aides. “David said he wants to be considered.”
Paterson, a 21-year veteran of the Legislature, was a known commodity, the Spitzer camp thought. He was a self-styled reformer who could help lay the groundwork for Spitzer’s ambitious agenda. He would also score votes with the black and disabled communities.
Spitzer’s advisers barely vetted Paterson.
“We didn’t dig into his work ethic — does he have a record of seeing an issue through to completion?” an aide admitted. “We thought that he had risen through the ranks. We assumed he had the same background as we did — you work your ass off.
“Now people are saying, ‘You didn’t realize he never followed through on anything?’ Nobody came back then and said he’s full of it.”
Assemblyman Keith Wright and state Sen. Malcolm Smith were consulted, said a source, and both were “enthusiastic” about Paterson.
Former state Comptroller Carl McCall, who lost his own bid for governor in 2002, called the Spitzer-Paterson tandem “a dream team.”
The affable Paterson seemed like a good foil to the serious Spitzer, who often came across as unlikable, stubborn and formal, sources said.
In January 2006, Spitzer made it clear to Eve that she was not going to get the nod, and she suspended her campaign. Spitzer formally announced days later that he would run with Paterson.
Harlem powerbrokers were “wildly pissed off,” said a source close to the negotiations.
Rangel issued his now famous remonstration of Spitzer: “He thinks he’s the smartest man in the room.”
Paterson’s true nature became apparent to Spitzer’s team almost immediately after they were sworn into office on Jan. 1, 2007.
“We were all in early and worked late, and he just wasn’t around,” said a former Spitzer adviser. “We got the sense that you had two David Patersons — one was sharp and insightful, and then there was the distracted David who missed meetings and wasn’t contributing.”
Spitzer himself often expressed frustration over his lieutenant governor’s unexplained absences from important meetings. He would turn to Marlene Turner, his chief-of-staff who was known as the “den mother,” and ask, “Why isn’t David here?”
One year and three months after he glided into office promising change, Spitzer resigned in disgrace after he was caught on a federal wire tap arranging a meeting with a prostitute.
Now, as Paterson struggles to stay in office while under the cloud of five investigations, members of Spitzer’s inner circle are claiming to have seen the implosion coming years ago.
Spitzer’s former senior adviser Lloyd Constantine writes in a forthcoming memoir that he “projected a Paterson governorship as even uglier than one under a disgraced but psychologically unfettered Eliot . . . However great Eliot’s handicaps, I viewed David’s as greater.”
Constantine places the blame for the inept Paterson squarely on his former boss’ shoulders.
“Eliot had been the starting pitcher who left the bases loaded with an inept reliever coming in,” he writes.
Cash landing
No matter how serious his offense, a fallen government employee’s tax-exempt pension can’t be touched.
GOV. PATERSON
Accused of witness tampering in a domestic incident, obtaining free World Series tickets and lying about it.
* Pension: $58,000, which he can start collecting as soon as he leaves office
FORMER GOV. ELIOT SPITZER
Resigned after revelations he slept with high-priced call girls.
* Pension: $25,000 when he turns 55 in five years
FORMER COMPTROLLER ALAN HEVESI
Convicted of using state workers to chauffeur his ailing wife.
* Pension: $166,000 SEN.
JOSEPH BRUNO
Pocketed $3.2 million in consulting fees. Convicted of corruption, he will face up to 20 years in prison when sentenced this month.
* Pension: $96,085
STATE POLICE SUPERINTENDENT HARRY CORBITT
Resigned after admitting he knew troopers talked to the woman who had accused a Paterson aide of domestic assault.
* Pension: $84,000
SEN. HIRAM MONSERRATE
Booted from office after he was convicted of misdemeanor assault on his girlfriend. The former cop retired from the NYPD on gpsychological disabilityh in 2000.
* Pension: Three quarters of his last NYPD salary (amount unknown) and $80,000 from his lawmaker’s state pension