City comptroller candidate Scott Stringer rolled out former Gov. David Paterson, his longtime friend and supporter, to campaign yesterday in the Harlem neighborhood Paterson represented for decades.
New York’s first black governor agreed to record robo calls and hit the campaign trail with Stringer, who is running against Paterson’s former boss, disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
“I’m Paterson approved!” Stringer declared repeatedly as he and the former governor greeted commuters for more than an hour at the 135th Street/Lenox Avenue subway station.
Paterson touted Stringer’s tenure as Manhattan borough president and painted him as a supporter of the black community who wasn’t just parachuting into Harlem because he needs minority voters.
“He has not only been a friend to the black community, he has been in this community.” Patterson said.
“This is not the first subway stop he ever did here — the first subway stops he did were 30 years ago. So, you know, it stands on its own.”
While Paterson had endorsed Stringer back in January, he is still friendly with Spitzer — who made him his running mate — and previously told Spitzer he would be there for him if he tried for a political comeback.
So when Spitzer — whose resignation in a prostitution scandal made Paterson governor — entered the race, Paterson had a difficult choice to make.
But it didn’t take for him to recommit to Stringer and agree to campaign with him.
“Scott Stringer is a good choice on his own. There doesn’t have to be a comparison,” Paterson said.
Others were happy to draw a contrast between the rivals.
At one point, state NAACP leader Hazel Dukes stopped by the subway station to greet the pair. Asked about Spitzer, she rolled her eyes.
“Oh, don’t even ask me about him,” she said with disgust.
She praised Stringer as a “man of integrity” and said the wealthy Spitzer, who is self-funding his campaign, “should go back and go on a yacht somewhere.”
Deric Mickens, 28, a model-actor from Iowa who now lives in the neighborhood, stopped to meet Stringer — and, like a couple of other commuters, confused his tainted Democratic opponent with sexting mayor wannabe Anthony Weiner.
“That’s the problem in this two-ring circus. I’m not running against Weiner. I’m running against the other one,” Stringer quipped.
In campaigning for Stringer, Paterson said he wasn’t going to do it by cutting down Spitzer.
When asked in Harlem why Stringer was a better choice than Spitzer, replied only, “Because I endorsed him.”
“I wasn’t there to trash Eliot. At this moment, I think the right choice is Scott Stringer. The public is looking for decent candidates,” Paterson later explained on his radio show.
Stringer has struggled to court the black vote. Spitzer has a 19-point lead overall, and a better than 3-to-1 margin among black voters, a Quinnipiac University poll found last week.