No Fourth Term for Pataki (Maybe)
Jeremy over at Charging RINO reports that New York Governor George Pataki is pretty much set to NOT seek a fourth term as governor of the Empire State. This might mean that he will make a run for the presidency come 2008. Pataki is a centrist Republican's dream: pro-choice, pro-gay rights, tough on crime. He's got my vote should he run in '08.
posted by Dennis Sanders @ 9:43 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
One thing I wanted to make clear: Pataki hasn't been a terrible governor. He's certainly not been a partisan ideologue (except in 2002 when he needed to pander to the right to get the state Conservative Party's endorsement for governor, important for any GOP state candidate in NYS). He has had a fairly good environmental record. He authorized the state to purchase a lot of land in the constitutionally protected Adirondack and Catskill Parks. He and Spitzer led the fight against acid rain producers in the midwest. He signed the Sexual Non-Discrimination Act (and perhaps more importantly, he pushed his ally, the Republican Senate Majority leader, to get it through that chamber). Technology-based businesses seem to be thriving here in the last decade.
It's easy to get him a free pass just because he's not Rick Santorum. And it could be easy for me to rip him just because he's a Republican. But his term hasn't been a disaster, just disappointing in a lot of key areas.
For me, one of my major issues is democracy, transparency and good governance. It's important to me because progress on most other issues (social, economic, etc) are largely dependent on that trio. In that regard, Pataki, Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans have been a miserable failure.
Did you delete my earlier comments and Paul's comment? Or was there some sort of technical problem?
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