Monday, April 06, 2009

NY To Paterson, Stay Home Next Year!

Governor Paterson continues to get bad news from the polls. His latest rating has him disapproved by more than two-thirds of New Yorkers and a solid majority want him to simply leave after what is left of Eliot Spitzer's term is up. He may have only been on the job for a little more than a year, but what people have seen so far is basically not good enough.

From PolitckerNY:

Sixty-three percent of voters said Paterson should not be elected to a full term in office, compared with only 22 percent that said he should, according to a new Quinnipiac poll released this morning.

Paterson’s job approval rating sunk to 28-60 percent.

Democrats, by a margin of 49-45 percent, say Paterson should announce now that he won’t seek election to the governor’s office next year. Democrats also said that if the election were held today, they’d vote for Andrew Cuomo instead of Paterson, by a margin of 61 to 18 percent. That’s a slightly larger margin than Cuomo had over Paterson in Quinnipiac’s poll in February, where he led 55-23 percent. (Coincidentally, I'm sure, the attorney general has begun openly campaigning against Paterson, authorizing a critical statement about the budget to Fred Dicker in today's Post.)

Cuomo is in the best position to run for governor by simply doing his job as Attorney General and letting Paterson sink himself. Not only has Paterson let himself be sucked into all that is dysfunctional with Albany, he couldn't even get anything done with his extraordinary powers. Instead, weak leadership and no real vision has left most voters sour with the accidental executive and wanting for someone that can actually take charge...hopefully with some real reform for the system as well.