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Newspapers Aren't Dead, but David Paterson's Career Is

2 years ago

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Senior Correspondent

NEW YORK -- Stop the presses about the death-bed irrelevance of newspapers. In a dizzying few hours Monday night, two bombshell stories in the New York Times revamped the contours of state politics -- all but guaranteeing that beleaguered Gov. David Paterson would resign within days and that Kirsten Gillibrand, the senator whom he appointed to succeed Hillary Clinton, would be blessed with a primary-free path to election in November. Harold Ford, the former Tennessee congressman turned Wall Street investment banker, announced in a Times op-ed that he would not be challenging Gillibrand.

The Times' latest revelation is that Paterson had orchestrated what appears to be a cover-up to convince a woman to downplay charges of domestic abuse against his closest adviser, his former driver David Johnson. According to the Times, Paterson had instructed both his press secretary and another state employee to speak with the woman who had obtained a temporary protective order against Johnson. Last week, the Times had reported that Paterson himself had talked briefly with the woman by telephone and that the governor's state police detail (which has no legal jurisdiction) was also involved. Whether this daisy chain amounts to witness tampering or simply world-class stupidity, Paterson may be the first politician in American history who took the fall for his former driver.

Paterson, the state's first African-American governor, abandoned his air-castle fantasies of running in November after the publication of last week's Times story. He can now measure his tenure in office in hours or maybe minutes. Waiting in the wings is recently appointed lieutenant governor Richard Ravitch, a 76-year-old veteran of the 1970s fiscal crisis, the former head of the New York City transit system and longtime establishment favorite. With Ravitch as insurance policy (and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo the likely successful gubernatorial candidate in November), the calls for Paterson's immediate resignation are about to become deafening.

Gillibrand, a former two-term Democratic congresswoman from the Albany area, was the beneficiary early last year of Paterson's first major misstep as governor. Paterson dangled the Senate appointment in front of Caroline Kennedy, only then to angrily turn on JFK's daughter at the last minute --- and to appoint the little-known Gillibrand to the seat once held by Bobby Kennedy. Even though she is a world-class political fundraiser (she raised more money in 2008 than any Democratic House candidate in the nation), Gillibrand was regarded as anything but Kennedy-esque.

Ford, who could easily best Gillibrand in the charisma department, came close to becoming the first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction when he narrowly lost a 2006 statewide race in Tennessee. But even though the Statue of Liberty offers a beacon of hope to carpet-bagging politicians (RFK, Hillary Clinton), there was always a bizarre element to his Senate boomlet, which seemed to reverberate from Wall Street all the way to the pricey Regency Hotel in midtown, where Ford had his morning power breakfast. The two-month Ford listening-tour pseudo-campaign contained its memorable political moments, especially when the would-be, man-of-the-people New York senator confessed in an interview with, yes, the Times that he had only visited Staten Island once -- by helicopter.

In politics, it is always better to be lucky than good. And since New York Democrats have proven themselves to be breathtakingly inept (Paterson, after all, became governor after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer), it is amazing that fortune has suddenly decided to smile on them. Ford's decision not to challenge Gillibrand spares the Democrats an expensive (maybe $30 million) primary campaign that would have drained Wall Street money from other races around the country. And Paterson's impending resignation would make Ravitch the perfect interim governor -- an apolitical problem-solver to preside over the state's budget crisis.

All in all, not a bad day's work for the New York Times.

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