It’s a slow news day I’ll indulge my fascination with the idea of former New York governor George Pataki running for president. Pataki has no charisma and isn’t especially conservative. He’s like a more boring, less accomplished Huntsman. Not even Joe Scarborough could pretend to feel the Pakmentum. Unlike Giuliani, Pataki isn’t an attention whore so I don’t think he’d run just to do cell phone tricks in front of big crowds.
On the other hand, I could see Pataki hurting Romney in New Hampshire, where Pataki has already been campaigning on the DL. Pataki is from the Hudson Valley, but he seems a lot more New England than any of the other Republican candidates do.
NY1 (via) claims Pataki may announce very soon:
A spokesman has confirmed that former Governor George Pataki is strongly considering entering the crowded race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Sources say Pataki, who left office in 2007, could make an announcement as early as next week.
[…..]The former governor was recently spotted watching the last Republican presidential debate at a bar in Chelsea.
And of course, what better way to get ready to run as a conservative than by hanging around bars in Chelsea?
Yutsano
Wait…so any time anywhere a former Republican officeholder pays attention to politics that’s a sign they’re about to join the race? LOL they REALLY want their Great White Hope don’t they?
eemom
please. Tell me you are kidding.
I mean I grew up in New York, and even I just barely vaguely remember that this guy was once governor of that state.
What the fuck next, Alphonse D’Amato?
Big Baby DougJ
@Yutsano:
I think Pataki might really run, I’m not sure why but he definitely has his toes in the water in NH.
Derf
What is with this boner you have over Huntsman? He has an R in front of his name. That is ALL I need to know.
Hunter Gathers
Really, Inanimate Carbon Rod thinks he can be POTUS? By the time mid-September rolls around, the only GOPer who hasn’t jumped in the race by then will be Mark Foley.
Yutsano
@Big Baby DougJ: I think they’re just desperately horserace hunting. Or they’re busy looking for the next Bright Shiny Toy since they already broke the last one and it’s pretty clear Perry will have too much of a challenge getting the Near One out of the White House.
@Derf: Stephen Harper with a majority government. You have no room to talk.
@Hunter Gathers:
I give it until Thanksgiving then Foley jumps in. Why the hell not at this point?
Davis X. Machina
The GOP is simply adopting an r-strategy.
eric
@Hunter Gathers: Inanimate?! I’ll show you inanimate….”
PeakVT
Don’t worry, America, a Sane Republican® will get into the race Any Day Now.
Elizabelle
Blog title made me laugh. Well done.
Thoughtcrime
Life is a cabaret, old chum.
Jeffro
That’s some serious bottom-of-the-barrel scraping, if true. Pataki has a negative chance of getting nominated. Double-digit negative.
Republicans, this is the field of candidates you’ve earned: two Tea Party nuts, RoboCandidate Prime, and RoboCandidate II (the only difference being the science-beliefy thing). Deal with it.
Alex S.
You know, when I listened to that Lady Gaga song I totally was preparing to run for president…
Anwyway, I think he’s running for VP like Biden, a VP for Perry, because Romney’s position in New Hampshire is getting weaker, especially if Huntsman keeps the pressure up.
Helen
@eemom: Say what you want about Alphonse, but he was on NY1 when Christie was elected and he called Christie a crook. He actually used the word crook and said that Christie is bringing “his little band of crooks” to NJ. If D’Amato is calling another Republican a crook well, then, wow; just wow.
Yutsano
@Elizabelle: If that doesn’t make you hungry for gylasz nothing will. And of course every family has their own recipe for it. And of course only theirs is the correct way of making it. :)
Anya
Why isn’t Pataki running for the senate instead, at least he’s known in New York? I don’t think he has a chance in hell. He’s boring as hell and he’s not certifiably insane or pretending to be — a requirement for the GOP nomination.
scav
Ding Ding This is your steward speaking. If there is a same republican on the plane, could you please make your way to the flight deck and introduce yourself to the cabin crew? Thank you.
Elizabelle
I think if I was a Republican moderate, I would vote Democratic this year. I wouldn’t grasp around for Huntsman or Pataki or a white horse candidate.
Because even if the semi-sane GOP candidate won, you’d still have the clown car parade behind him. The Republicans are broken.
Let the conservative wingnuts go down HARD this year.
The far right needs its time behind the woodshed, and would get it, save for corporate MSM and big money.
Big Baby DougJ
@Anya:
Republicans can’t win statewide office in New York State anymore. The registration numbers favor Dems by 20 points.
Elizabelle
@Yutsano:
Nevah even heard of gyz – whatever.
You are quite the gourmet.
cleek
go Huntsman!
shine on you relatively un-crazy diamond!
eric
VP???? he cant bring NY to the table, so why bother? The VP comes from Ohio, Fla, Mich (if Romney loses), Penn., maybe Missouri, Minn, or Wisc., and that is about it. You gotta pick someone that puts a blue or purple state closer to the Red. Obama wont lose NY ever.
Yutsano
@Elizabelle: If you Anglicize it you know it as goulash. And there is one must-have ingredient: paprika!
Davis X. Machina
@Helen: I place immense implicit trust in any statement Ethical Al D’Amato says about crooks.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Y’know, if I was staring down the road at a brokered convention, being the least appalling choice would be a really good position to be in. I’m just sayin’…
eemom
Bob Dole! Whatssamatter with him? Why he’s a fuckin Abraham Lincoln by today’s standards.
George Allen! Hell, they’ve reanimated his political corpse here in Virginny, and folks here REMEMBER what a pig-ignorant racist asshole he is.
Sandra Day O’Connor! Now there’s a conservative who KNOWS how to get the right guy in the White House.
Christie Todd Whitman! Hey, it takes BALLS to stand at the smoldering ruins of Ground Zero for two whole minutes and tell the workers the air is safe to breathe.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Goulash :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano:
I think this it it precisely. The media is trying, desperately, to djin up some interest in the clown car destruction derby, by bringing in someone, anyone, who might capture the imagination of the non insane out there and make the general election less of a total walk for Obama. That’s their greatest fear…that the general will be the biggest clown shoes the GOP can muster against Obama, which will be a horse race in the same sense that Secretariat’s running of the Belmont Stakes was a horse race.
MattF
Must be that man Perry isn’t turning out to be so great, after all. There must be a Republican out there who can break out of the C-list into the B-list, no?
SiubhanDuinne
FYWP, can’t edit my own one-word comment.
If I had been able to, I would have observed that Yutsy got there first.
eric
@Villago Delenda Est: great analogy except for the fact that Sham as an honorable competitor. Here, the “Shams” are not honorale in the least.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: ‘S all right. I figured I was gonna have to explain it anyway. :)
licensed to kill time
♫ I don’t want to go to Chelsea ♫
The Ancient Randonneur
Romney and Pataki battle for many of the same votes, as does Bachmann and Perry. The horserace media must be in heaven with the possibility (at least at this stage of the race) for the primary season going all the way to the convention. IIRC the GOP doesn’t have the super delegate issue the Dems had last go around, but hey, I’m sure the Villagers can figure a way to build the drama and string this out to the convention if even remotely possible. Too bad Newweek and Time don’t put Ron Paul on the cover just to keep the kettle boiling.
JPL
The Washington Post had a few negative articles about Perry today. If you lost the post, you lost the nomination.. just saying.
The repubs might need another candidate added to the pot.
scav
@Yutsano: Fastest entrance to the entirely non-English web that I’ve ever encountered. Well done sir. As a side-note, another beginning with G-food from you? I’m assuming that’s not planned.
Cat Lady
O to be Romney, wondering how all his money, looks, pandering, flesh pressing, equivocating and walk backing counts for shit. He’s going to die with that stupid underwear on, having never been president. How’s that feel, Mittens?
dmsilev
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
True in the abstract, but then consider who are the people doing the brokering. Remember, convention delegates are typically chosen from the more fanatical of the local party apparatus.
Jeffro
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: That’s a very good point. Hmm…so Huntsman goes in to the convention, armed with polls that show Perry, Bachman, and Paul would produce epic, Goldwater-style defeat…
…then he shows the party bosses his own polling, showing a Huntsman-Christie or Huntsman-McDonnell ticket winning by a few points…
…hmmmm.
gex
I think pretending to run for the GOP nomination is a new occupation for GOP politicians. People give you money, you get media attention, and then you go home at the end of the day. You don’t have to work very hard. Sarah Palin provided the template.
dmsilev
@MattF:
Davis X. Machina
@Cat Lady: He’s the Mormom Harold Ford, Jr.
They can get together and commiserate sometime. They were going to be The First…
RandyH
Chelsea? Isn’t that neighborhood a bit gay / artist / gypsy for a Republican like Pataki to be hanging out in? Or are we talking about a different Chelsea? My NYC knowledge is weak.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
What would be so wrong about letting the hard right — which used to be the fringe (you know, John Birchers) — go down hard?
I think a lot of the media leans Republican, because of their ownership and control structure, and they’re hunting for a political fig leaf. [Edit: Oh — and they don’t want to offend any readers or advertisers, no matter how insane. It’s all about the Benjamins.]
Hence the hunt for the white hat candidate.
A rout of the hard right might be bad for media ratings, but would be good for democracy.
RandyH
This morning I watched the Sunday shows and Savanah Guthrie hosted MTP instead of David Gregory. What a refreshing change.
Best line of the morning:
Too awesome for a Sunday show.
Elizabelle
@RandyH:
Wow. Good for Savannah. Our media is learning.
Helen
@RandyH: There’s only one Chelsea in NYC and you have pegged it. When I heard the live report on NY1 I couldn’t help but think that it was some sort of code. Why didn’t they just say “Manhattan.”
forked tongue
If Pataki starts tweeting about how much he likes The Shaggs, that will be the tell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RandyH:
Wow. That’s nuclear for a Sunday show, and deadly accurate. The fact that the Dolphin Lady is treated as a serious political observer is as good a symptom as any of the intellectual and moral (“some times you just have to walk on by”) bankruptcy of our political media.
I thought La Nooners was on the ABC payroll. Maybe Krugman called her stoopit in the Green Room. Or they took the Bailey’s off the brunch table.
Yutsano
@Cat Lady: I’m still not certain I got the Magyar spelling right honestly. Then I decided it didn’t matter unless you’re Hungarian. :) And the foray into the goulash world is not necessarily reflective of my culinary evolution save my experimentation with hash. Which I almost have a perfected formula for. Details forthcoming.
Cat Lady
@Yutsano:
Me and scav thank you. Carry on.
different church-lady
I agree — it’s a slow news day.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
I don’t disagree with you in the slightest, the problem is, such a rout is NOT good for the Village. Close race means ratings, which means money, which means career advancement for Villagers. They do not have the country’s best interest at heart, only their own myopic selfish interest.
Never mind that the Belmont Stakes in ’73 was one of the most amazing and memorable horse races in history precisely because it wasn’t even close.
Martin
Wow, there’s some real danger developing here.
Currently we can rule Huntsman out as an outlier – he’s one guy running a reasonably sane campaign (at the moment) against a dozen complete lunatics. When you get two guys running reasonably sane campaigns, then it gets a lot more complicated. Right now the debate is between sane and insane on the right so Huntsman really has no ammunition when the other guys are trying to out-wingnut each other. With Pataki, who as a much credibility and right to be there as Perry, an honest to god sane platform might develop on us with arguments between the two about responsible means to increase tax revenues and how to transition us to green energy. It’s going to be a lot harder for Obama contrast with those guys as the GOP race goes on because the really easy obvious stuff (“They dismiss evolution!”) isn’t there.
And you know Fox isn’t dragging these guys along. Someone is exerting some influence here.
Big Baby DougJ
@RandyH:
More than a bit. It’s not the Castro but it’s as close to the Castro as New York gets.
RandyH
@Martin:
I think it’s Rove. I think he sees the damage he caused and is trying to correct the course of the doomed ship that is the Republican Party.
RandyH
@Big Baby DougJ:
It amazes me that he found a bar in Chelsea willing to switch the channel to Fox News for a Republican debate.
Brian R.
Anyone else remember Pataki’s address to the 2004 RNC? He sounded like Mr. Rogers.
Anya
@Cat Lady: I find Romney a bit creepy — the way he talks and his movements when he’s talking are really off putting. The MSM sells him as having a “presidential look”…not a great feat — you only have to be older white male to look presidential in the eyes of the pundits, but he’s completely ineffective in debates. McCain mopped the floor with him in the 2008 GOP primary debates, and Mr. Empty Suite sat there alternating between being indignant and grinning like a fool.
b-psycho
@RandyH: Maybe he claimed it was really Comedy Central while they were flipping through.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya:
That creepy smile when he cheerfully announced not only would he not close Gitmo he’d “double it!”; or when he asked a couple of grade school age black kids if they were wearing their “bling”…. “who let the dogs out? Woof woof!” I think Romney could implode big time. But the Establishment Media will protect him and prop him up as long as they can.
I don’t know if this story will hurt him, but it’s some pretty bad timing, IMHO.
Cat Lady
@Anya:
A quick story about Romney – a friend of mine’s sister is in a chorus that sang at his temple one holiday season. Ann Romney was talking to her, and Mitt came up to both of them. When Ann introduced her as being in the chorus, he just turned and walked away without saying anything to her – she wasn’t useful to him and therefore he had nothing to say. He’s an ambitious hatchet man who is as big a stiff as he is a phony, and anyone who’s ever had personal dealings with him hates him. I guess all those pigeons have come home to roost. Couldn’t happen to a more worthy individual.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Two bedroom 3000 sq ft house… wow big rooms…
RandyH
@Big Baby DougJ:
Also, too – as long as we’re talking in San Francisco references (where I once lived for some time,) Chelsea is more like SOMA (South of Market) than the Castro. At least that’s how I saw it. On my one trip to Manhattan, I spent a whole day walking through the West Village (closest match to the Castro,) the meat packing district and Chelsea. I thought to myself that if I were to move to NYC, I would want to live in one of those neighborhoods.
Big Baby DougJ
@RandyH:
The Castro has been overrun by frat boys and investment bankers?
Martin
@Anya:
Romney lives in uncanny valley.
Dan
Pataki is to the left of Obama. I’d consider voting for him, but I’d be afraid he may have too much party loyalty and let the house get away with too much crap.
RandyH
@Big Baby DougJ:
No. But at the time I visited (2000 maybe) that was my observation.
That’s really sad to hear.
PurpleGirl
@Dan: Do not believe that Pataki is left of Obama. I’ve loosely followed Pataki since he was mayor of Peekskill. He is very tied into the Republican party — he moved very deliberately from the Assembly to the Senate to become governor. He swore he’d only serve two terms but he served three. He running the State Senate he primaried 7-termer Mary Goodhue in a dirty campaign. He did not improve Peekskill before he left the mayor’s job.
I will grant that he has been good on environmental issues but he is a through and through Republican, otherwise. He comes from a humble background but has made himself a fortune. His first Lt. Governor was Betsy McCaughey. He believes tax cuts solve everything — never been a tax cut he didn’t love at first sight.
(I had friends living in Peekskill and it was my second home; I spent a lot of time there.)
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t think it will hurt him because he’s selling being rich (job creator) as his most marketable skill.
@Martin: ha
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
if mark foley jumps in, it will only be to gin up the youth vote.
i am beginning to think that the clown car is actually the republicans trying to build a ground game. take whatever slivers of loyalists any of these troubadours have, get them invested, dangle a veep, get them on board before the money and the weight shifts to where it is already intending to go. whenever the gop race is decided, they will start with an automatic die hard 40% who just want to beat obama at all costs. it doesn’t matter how obscure or laughable any of the potentials seem now, the media will declare them to be a rocket propelled momentum machine so complex, yet simple and revolutionary, that only galt could have designed it.
i still think the kochs and company know damned well who they are backing, and they know that as soon as the weight shifts, and white smoke rises from the koch tower like a hellishly convoluted simile, the media and the hate obama crowd will love their choice.
Martin
@Dan:
Oh bullshit. Pataki is to the left of Obama when Pataki needs Dems to get things done and Obama needs Republicans to get things done. You give Pataki a Republican Congress and he’ll be no more left than Romney is. You give Obama a Democratic Congress and you’ll get stimulus, etc. again.
gogol's wife
@Yutsano:
I thought it was gulas (with an accent mark somewhere or other). “s” in Hungarian is like “sz” in Polish, i.e. pronounced like “sh.” And those crazy Hungarians pronounce “sz” as “s.” But some real Hungarian should tell us. I’m just a Slovak, in other words, one of their peasant workers.
gogol's wife
@Yutsano:
Apparently it’s gulyás.
Yutsano
@gogol’s wife: I knew it didn’t look right. Thanks. :) This is what I get for having the one Magyar speaker I know be home with her family right now.
birthmarker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well at least the pundits can’t say he never created a job.
birthmarker
@RandyH: I made a wonderful visit to NYC last month, and stayed in Chelsea. Great area-felt very safe. Also super well located for visitors. To all you NYCers out there, you live in an awesome city.
RandyH
@birthmarker:
I loved my visit to Manhattan. I was there for two 3-day weekends surrounding a week-long class I had to go to for work in New Jersey (from SF) and I had a great time. I actually liked New Jersey as well, believe it or not. Normally I don’t travel in the US. I try to go to other countries with my travel dollars but if I’m on a business trip inside the US I’ll expand it a bit if I can work it.
Mind you, this was pre-9/11. I recall driving that rental car out of that awful tunnel from NJ to NY, talking to my boss on the cell phone and remarking about how amazing those ugly, plain twin towers looked from down below while stuck in traffic. I had never seen buildings so tall. They were more than double the size of anything in SF.
ramble ramble ramble… Sorry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dan: Seriously? You really think that? You are shitting us, right?
birthmarker
@RandyH: Driving in NYC!! I don’t have that kind of guts…
ckc (not kc)
@Martin:
…uncanny valley
just down the road from Galt’s Gulch
RandyH
@birthmarker:
It’s easy. You never move anywhere. (This was 4 PM rush hour.) Two hours later, when I got 20 blocks to Avis to turn in the car (a block away from my hotel,) I turned it in without much gas in it after having not bought the fill-up option. I was so furious that I didn’t know where to buy gas and couldn’t take the traffic jam anymore. They forgave me and only charged me only for the real cost of the gas to fill it instead of the 4x price that they should have. But I needed a car in NJ. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. I like cities, taxis and subways. Supertrains!
birthmarker
@RandyH: Ha!!
The Spy Who Loved Me
Is Pataki an in-the-closet gay man? Chelsea is easily the most gaytastic area of NYC. I have a number of gay male friends living in the city, and every single one of them lives in Chelsea. As do their gay friends.
RandyH
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
I kinda doubt that he’s a closet case or he’d be ordering up gay prostitutes from Craigslist instead of hanging out (in public) in Chelsea.
Maybe he just likes being around gay and other open-minded people, like Giuliani does as well. (What sane-minded New Yorker wouldn’t?) But he’s gonna have trouble proving his gay-hatred bona fides to the Republican community…
Wait for John Huntsman to come out and say that some of his best friends are gay, and actually introduce some of them. There seems to be a competition going on here among the (few) sane Republicans – because they know they’re the only ones who can win a general election, despite the fact that they can’t win a primary in many states. It’s an interesting gamble.
Davis X. Machina
@Martin: I will be charitable, and assume it’s a reflex. It’s like blaming someone for sneezing in the presence of pollen. Sure it’s a loud, annoying, sudden noise, but there’s probably nothing they could do about it.
Brian R.
I read that three times before I realized the person who wrote it was actually being sincere.
Pataki was center-right when he was governor of a big blue state, but if he enters this race he’s going to run hard to the right as quick as he can.
xian
It’s “gin up” fwiw. The comment about Romney living in uncanny valley wins the Internet.
Lojasmo
@Dan:
Your political compas: please turn it in for repair.
DougW
Derf loves him some Huntsman boner…. Or was it Bainor Boner? Perhaps badly boned Bainor Boner a la Huntsman?
Groucho48
Pataki wasn’t a bad Governor. I voted for him, the first term, over Cuomo, the Hamlet of NYS.
I’ve noticed he’s had his toe in the water for the Presidency for a while. I think he started slowly, slowly, moving to the right over the last few years or so, gearing up for a possible Presidential run.
As Governor, he was pretty laid-back. Didn’t make waves. He was decent on the environment and didn’t pander on social issues. Can’t ask for more from a Republican.
He strikes me as the kind of guy who would be a good Governor during good times, but, who wouldn’t have a clue how to handle tough decisions. The Presidency is well beyond his level of competence.
priscianusjr
@Dan:
wkwillyis
Upstate New York was settled by New Englanders moving west. See “The Cousins Wars” by Kevin Phillips. Upstate is New England, so is eastern Long Island, and New York City, Pennsylvania, and Delaware is German and Dutch.