The Wall Street Journal has a great article about the unique difficulties of negotiating a massive budget with a huge hole — worse,two different plans: One by Paterson and One by his Lt. Gov.

Albany lawmakers and lobbyists say Mr. Paterson’s involvement in the budget talks has been sporadic. Worse, they say, tensions have flared between his two most senior advisers: The 76-year-old Mr. Ravitch, a longtime state hand who was involved in New York City’s budget crisis in the mid-1970s, and the governor’s chief of staff, Lawrence Schwartz, who has bristled at the lieutenant governor’s impact on the negotiations with the Legislature. WSJ

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Just a few short weeks ago David Paterson not only appeared to be clearly out of the New York Governor’s race, he also seemingly had the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over his head by a mere half a thread. However, given the troubles of Eric Massa (D-NY 29), New Yorkers have found a politician they can hate more than Paterson.

What’s worse than trying to cover-up the sexual harassment and domestic abuse by a subordinate ? Well it helps to remember the old saying in politics by Edwin Washington Edwards, 4 time governor of Louisanna “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” (On his 1983 Gubernatorial election against incumbent David C. Treen.) via http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards

Well Eric Massa appears to have done close enough for Government work …. and the villagers are in pursuit of a juicer story than Governor Paterson’s atrocious behavior.

Joshua Green @theAtlantic
Then came last week’s news that Massa, a 20-year Navy veteran elected to the House in 2008, was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly groping three young male staffers. Massa sort of denied it, while claiming that the House Democratic leadership had set him up.

David Paterson’s troubles continue in New York. I doubt this guy will have any friends left if the NYTimes keeps dropping bombs like this:

Gov. David A. Paterson personally directed two state employees to contact the woman who had accused his close aide of assaulting her, according to two people with direct knowledge of the governor’s actions.

Nytimes Danny Hakim and William K. Rashbaum.

I’m surprised this came so soon, but the NYtimes is reporting that Harold Ford is out of the New York Senate race.

Here’s the NYtimes article.

I don’t think anyone thought Ford was actually going to run …
1.) He had a free-hosted blog as his campaign web site.
2.) He had a bunch of weird responses to his tax filings.
3.) He kept flip flopping on basic issues.

Previously I wrote about Harold Ford here.

My My My…

David Paterson has managed to torpedo his campaign for New York Governor, and by virtue of his belligerence toward the Chi-town crew (Obama-Rahm-Jarrett-Axe) there are going to be some really long knives out to dice him up and fillet him in order grandstand about coruption.

The Governor should have thrown his aide David Johnson under the bus — didn’t he learn from POTUS?

When people choose to do something foolish, you have to encourage them to resign and find a new line of work, if not fire them.

Now, David Paterson isn’t just fighting to stay in the race for Governor, he is fighting to hold onto his chair as Governor.

Update after the jump with new video of D. Pat’s press conference

[...]

Well, after weeks speculation the New York Times finally drops their expose on Governor David Paterson… Jeez, it is not pretty. Remember the whispers about a blockbuster NYTimes story? well they were true…

The story is primarily about a Paterson aide who the NYTimes initially profiled last week, David Johnson.  Evidently, Mr. Johnson has a history of alleged violence against women, and this case involves Gov. Paterson trying to play clean-up directly.

It’s the classic cover-up as more damaging than the crime. More info after the jump…

[...]

After examining David Patterson at the Governors Ball hosted by POTUS Barack Obama, David Patterson offered up some words to the affect that he was a “Teflon” Governor.

Pure Hilarity by NyMag.com:

In some ways, Patterson is the opposite of a Teflon politician — even things that aren’t his fault, like the State Senate’s dysfunction and New York’s financial crisis, seem to stick to him (the glue governor?).

[...]

Harold Ford is trying to go on offense after being beaten up about his lack of New York tax returns and big Merill Lynch money (when it seems like he does very very little for Merrill Lynch, given he was working for MSNBC and working as an adjunct professor / fellow or something). [...]