{"id":1639,"date":"2010-02-22T10:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/02\/22\/does-george-pataki-want-to-be-a-us-senator\/"},"modified":"2010-02-22T10:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T14:35:00","slug":"does-george-pataki-want-to-be-a-us-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/02\/22\/does-george-pataki-want-to-be-a-us-senator\/","title":{"rendered":"Does George Pataki want to be a US Senator?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right now, New York state politics is all about desire. <\/p>\n

You have long-shot candidates (David Paterson, Rick Lazio, Harold Ford Jr.) scrapping hard for a political future.<\/p>\n

And you have incredibly strong, favored-to-win candidates (Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Andrew Cuomo) sitting like big dogs on the porch.<\/p>\n

The question is simple: Are they waiting for their moment, or are they sitting this one out?<\/p>\n

Giuliani has made his future clear: he’s out. <\/p>\n

Cuomo is sending a lot of signals that say pretty clearly: he’s in. <\/p>\n

But the Cuomos have a history of surprising everyone by not running<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As a single guy dating Sandra Lee, a star of the Food Network, does he want to enter the voracious, tabloid frenzy of Albany politics?<\/p>\n

(And does he want to wade into the fray at a time when the Empire state is awash in red ink?)<\/p>\n

Also on the fence is George Pataki, a moderate Republican with a weirdly mixed record as governor.<\/p>\n

He was incredibly popular in the North Country, but his tenure angered a lot of conservatives.<\/p>\n

He used taxpayer money to buy massive amounts of land in the Adirondacks; and his spending plans contributed mightily to the budget woes in Albany.<\/p>\n

But Republicans would give a lot to win back a New York Senate seat. <\/p>\n

Indeed, that kind of victory might seal the deal on a new GOP majority. <\/p>\n

Right now polls show that Pataki would beat incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand by 6%, according to a new Siena poll<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That’s not a definitive lead, but it’s a great place for a Republican to start a race in New York.<\/p>\n

So what’ll it be? It comes down to desire. <\/p>\n

Does he want to be back in the game, dealing with a GOP movement that has moved steadily to the right?<\/p>\n

Or is he — like Giuliani — happy to watch from the sidelines?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right now, New York state politics is all about desire. You have long-shot candidates (David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}