| 1. "Paterson does, and does not, represent change"
Paterson will always be considered in the aftermath of Spitzer. By that I do not mean Spitzer's downfall, but more of what he came into office to represent. Here's the NYTimes editorial published today:
When 70 percent of New Yorkers voted for Eliot Spitzer in 2006, it was not because they thought he was a particularly likable guy. He wasn't. They wanted somebody to take a power hose to Albany and its corrupt and embarrassing Legislature.
Obviously, Mr. Spitzer could not do it. Even before he destroyed his career, his abrasive style alienated even potential allies and gave his enemies new energy to resist reforms. Mr. Paterson is known for his empathy and good humor. That could be a good thing so long as he is also ready to fight hard for what must be done.
Paterson comes in under expectations that he will not challenge the Albany status quo. In one sort of way, he represents change, being New York's first African-American governor, and the nation's first blind governor (with one minor exception as Robert at The Albany Project pointed out. He does so by not being a Spitzer clone in terms of style, which I will get into later. And he does so, as anyone who succeeds a public official forced to leave, simply by being the successor. In that sort of way, he is given a free pass for awhile in terms of expectations by the media. They have been extremely polite in their "Mr. Paterson has a chance to really change Albany in a way Mr. Spitzer could not" narrative. So Paterson is given a hand here.
That comes before journalists get into their "Mr. Paterson comes from the old-school, Harlem political family, Rangel-style machine politics" shtick.
Within the confines of the Harlem district that he represented for 23 years, Mr. Paterson is a well-known commodity, a scion of a legendary club that included his father, who is a former New York secretary of state, deputy mayor and state senator; David N. Dinkins, New York City's first black mayor; Representative Charles B. Rangel; and Percy E. Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president - although he sometimes bucked their wishes.
The New York media has a habit of going after two kinds of politicians: ones from New York City- which they, and many New Yorkers, automatically characterize as only actually caring about New York City- and politicians from political families. Because Paterson comes from both, he starts out at a disadvantage. No matter what a politician has done for upstate, the NYTimes and Buffalo News and other outlets will always chide the politician, "Mr/Ms. X needs to take care to work to develop the upstate economy and not forget about the other half of the state." And voters are automatically cautious of any NYC "old-family" politician, including the Cuomos. Paterson starts out laboring under this preconceived notion. This is how he represents non-change to voters.
What does this mean in terms of advantages and disadvantages? A friend from back home (I hail from the Buffalo suburbs), a big Spitzer fan, even wrote to me that he thinks Paterson won't change Albany because his whole life has been about New York politics. Then, he wrote a sentence later, "But I hope he's different than Spitzer, who became the typical lying Albany politician." Paterson is being set up to represent change personally, but non-change politically, at the same time. He has a great sense of humor and has charmed the press to some degree. If he can press this advantage with the people of New York, it will outweigh his political background and the negative attention it's been getting.
2. "Paterson is a get-along, go-along politician"
I think most of this is something Paterson has worked to do himself. Yesterday I read this:
Bruno and Spitzer had been in such serious conflict and name-calling spats that action in Albany was stalled for more than six months. On Friday, instead of receiving the 78-year-old Republican leader, Paterson went to Bruno's office. Reporters asked why.
"Because Senator Bruno bought lunch for me, and I don't know if that qualifies as a gift, but I think it was a nice thing to do, and so I'm going to partake," Paterson said. He then added about his longtime friendly political adversary: "I brought my own taster with me."
Bruno laughed and posed for pictures with Paterson, who has often said he felt an almost father-son relationship with the upstate Republican.
And Paterson himself, on his endorsement of Hillary Clinton:
The most supportive person to me has been Hillary Clinton. She has, I think, has helped to pave a way for us to take control of the Senate...I think with that kind of personal relationship with someone, to just turn you back on them because someone from another state is running is just something I didn't want to do.
The media has much gone along with this here, here and here.
Paterson is clearly the kind of politician who believes in relationships and the value of them. He did before being chosen by Spitzer for the ticket in 2006. But I think he is even more cautious of confrontation in the wake of Spitzer. Contrast Spitzer's being on non-speaking terms with Bruno, and Bruno calling him a "spoiled brat" along with a number of other names, with Paterson's "father-son" relationship. Contrast Spitzer's delayed endorsement of Clinton that irritated her aides, and his willingness to campaign against members of his own party, with Paterson's admission of the importance of personal relationships. He clearly understands the image that Spitzer brought upon himself, and he has been reading about. Case in point is the NYTimes editorial I referenced above. And poll after poll I read since 2006 would ask "do you think Gov. Spitzer is too hard-charging/abrasive/stubborn?" or "do you think Gov. Spitzer has worked hard enough to bring people together in the Legislature?" Paterson wants to avoid that. Part of it is that, and part that as someone who has actually worked in legislative politics, he naturally has a go-along, get-along manner of consensus and finding votes and making deals.
This is something that worries me as a progressive, because Spitzer's way of doing things, as much as it rankled Legislature Democrats and the public, stands in sharp contrast to, for example, Pelosi running fundraisers for Al Wynn, or a cutting deals to get an increase in the minimum wage in exchange for funding the war. Spitzer's problem wasn't his hard-charging style, but the fact that Albany and the people governing it make up an institution that is not receptive to a different kind of politics. That, combined with the Bruno flight scandal, made it a rough first year. One shouldn't expect a new governor who lacks personal relationships with much of the Legislature to tame Albany, its processes and people, in a single year. Paterson shouldn't misinterpret Spitzer's style as bad for progressive change, but rather as another avenue. But he is clearly inclined towards the typical Albany brand of politics, and that's something to watch out for. On one hand, we're getting someone more progressive. On the other, we're getting someone who is of the old ways of doing things, including cutting deals, campaigning for sitting members of the Legislature instead of progressive primary challengers. There are positives and negatives in both.
3. "Paterson is a far-left NYC liberal"
While this is the most exciting part of his record for me, it's certainly been the focus of the media coverage this week. Here's Tom Precious and Bob McCarthy of the Buffalo News:
Paterson's record shows that he is far more liberal than Spitzer
But peppered throughout the bill introductions, a portrait is drawn of a classic New York City liberal Democrat.
He has put in bills to create a commission to study the problems of people moving to New York from the Caribbean, make private schools subject to Freedom of Information laws, restrict tobacco advertising and make certain public school instructors eligible for unemployment benefits during the summer. He has sought to ban chokeholds by police and to push shoot-to-injure policies, a bill he strongly disavowed support for Thursday and said was the workings of a staff member at the time.
Paterson offered a range of strongly pro-tenant,
pro-consumer and, critics say, anti-corporation measures. He sought to require retail stores with more than $1.5 million in sales to offer public bathrooms and wanted to give tax credits to people who adopted children with disabilities or racially mixed backgrounds. Landlords could not ban pets in their apartments so long as they were not a nuisance or dangerous, and he sought a special state commission to study police brutality in the state.
And here:
He sponsored legislation that would have made it legal for noncitizens to vote in state and local elections and another bill that would have made it legal to use force against a police officer while resisting a wrongful arrest - a proposal that was blasted by police unions and went nowhere.
There has been an effort to paint the record to go along with the "African-American Democrat from the five boroughs" image the New York media has painted. It fits well for them. I think this creates a problem for us.
Spitzer was a strong progressive with good instincts, and got away with a lot of it, despite being from Manhattan, because he was considered a crusading reformer and he did things that made everyone in the state nod and think "that's someone we need on our side." Andrew Cuomo is following that model with his work on the student-loan industry. Spitzer, and his office, also did work that made people feel like it touched everyone. Everyone has been, or known someone who has been, screwed by insurance companies or by Wall Street. Or they expected a lot of people had been. Everyone I knew back home liked Spitzer, thought he was the white-knight crusader who kept corporate America from screwing us little guys.
Even on the smallest local issues, he and his people were there. When the local Oldsmobile dealership from which my parents bought their used car refused to pay for the $1,800 worth of repairs, under our warranty, because they said the mileage on the warranty starts from 0 miles and not the 18,000 on it when we bought it and was therefore expired, my mother wrote a letter to the Buffalo office of the Attorney General. And the next thing you knew, the dealership called to offer a compromise because the Buffalo office had written threatening an investigation of the dealership's practices. Basically, it felt like someone was on your side.
Yet McCarthy and others in the press have made out to make Paterson sound extreme with his police brutality measures and allowing non-citizens to vote in state elections that only benefit his Harlem constituents who either African-American or formerly from the Caribbean or something. It gives voters the image that no matter what Paterson does, it is always for his Harlem constituents, particularly given the media-trained perspective that NYC politicians only care about NYC. Voters where I'm from are naturally wary of an African-American governor from Harlem, and it will take work to convince them he cares about the rest of the state.
4. "Don't underestimate a blind man"
A lot has been made of Paterson's tact and political acumen. He engineered a coup to unseat the Senate minority leader in 2002. He grew up surrounded by very smart politicians from a region of the state that is very political and very competitive, at least in Democratic politics. He started out seven seats down and now we're just down one seat from the majority. He has formed relationships with Bruno and Silver, and gotten more done in the State Senate despite his physical challenges, which really is quite remarkable. There have been a lot of "I went in expecting to pick Paterson's pocket on such and such, and left without my wallet" types of anecdotes in the press. I think this is good news for us. Voters like the underdog and the story that goes with him. And I prefer someone who can surprise opponents into underestimating him.
These next few weeks will be telling in terms of whether what I think of his differences in style and substance, compared to Spitzer's, will be accurate. The state budget deadline is coming up, and if he lets it go by, like the powers that be in Albany have done for the last several decades, he will get tons of press that he's another typical Albany politician and doesn't represent change at all. I think that problem will outweigh any extra money he puts in for progressive statewide programs, or deals he can cut because he has personal relationships with more people in Albany. It will set us backwards in too many other ways, and confirm what I suspect about how Paterson will do things in Albany: as they've always been done. I hope he will be a change in that regard, too, and really push the institution as Spitzer did. |
