All hail Andrew Cuomo, the de facto governor-elect of New York.
And all pity David Paterson, now the state’s de facto lame-duck governor.
This sudden and breathtaking transformation of the New York political scene comes compliments of President Obama and/or his political operatives — and no effort by the White House yesterday to backpedal on what was said will change that.
The notion that the nation’s first black president would be responsible for destroying the candidacy of New York’s first black governor left some of the state’s normally voluble Democratic officials speechless — but not surprised.
That’s because Obama, unlike Gov. Paterson, was elected to his job, and thus is sensitive to the implications of a chief executive having no prospect of being elected to his, especially in a key Democratic state.
Obama knows that Paterson is the most unpopular governor in the United States, and — given the problems that are racking so many states — that’s saying a lot.
And Obama, concerned with his own declining poll numbers, knows Paterson is so inept that virtually every Democratic elected official is holding his/her breath fearing the governor will cost the party key elective offices next year — as well as the crucial control (from a redistricting point of view) of the state Senate.
But most importantly, Obama realizes that the only thing that could stand between his own re-election in 2012 and a direct challenge from former mayor and potential Republican gubernatorial and presidential contender Rudy Giuliani — the man who defeated New York City’s first black mayor — is Attorney General Cuomo, the state’s most popular politician and one who unfailingly beats Giuliani in the polls.
The unelected Paterson, who polls show is easy prey to a Giuliani candidacy, is, of course, a very different story.
Whether it was his massive state spending and tax increases in the face of a deteriorating economy, his favoritism toward friends and cronies in hiring and handing out raises, his cruel smearing of Caroline Kennedy during the botched Senate-selection fiasco, or, most recently, his bizarre claim that he — along with Obama — were or soon would be victims of a white-controlled media conspiracy, Paterson has single-handedly turned what was initially an overwhelmingly supportive and sympathetic New York electorate against him.
That in itself wouldn’t produce White House intervention, however worrisome it may be to a Democratic president concerned about GOP victories next year.
But when the nation’s first black president comes to realize that the first black governor of New York has set the stage for the return of a Republican presidential contender whose claim to fame is based in part on having defeated David Dinkins in a racially polarizing New York election, that’s another matter entirely.