Obama Asks David Paterson To Get Under the Bus

Just imagine if a white president asked a black governor to step aside. Why, that would be raaaaacist! Although considering the accidental governor's abysmal approval ratings, this is pretty much a no-brainer. It will be interesting to see if Obama asks his buddy Deval Patrick, the governor of Taxachusetts with about the same miserable rating as David Paterson, to step aside.

President Obama has sent a request to Gov. David A. Paterson that he withdraw from the New York governor’s race, fearing that Mr. Paterson cannot recover from his dismal political standing, according to two senior administration officials and a New York Democratic operative with direct knowledge of the situation.

The decision to ask Mr. Paterson to step aside was proposed by political advisers to Mr. Obama, but approved by the president himself, one of the administration officials said.

“Is there concern about the situation in New York? Absolutely,” the second administration official said Saturday evening. “Has that concern been conveyed to the governor? Yes.”

The administration officials and the Democratic operative spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions with the governor were intended to be confidential.

The president’s request was conveyed to the Mr. Paterson by Representative Gregory W. Meeks, a Queens Democrat, who has developed a strong relationship with the Obama administration, they said.

The move against a sitting Democratic governor represents an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the president, and is a delicate one, given that Mr. Paterson is one of only two African-American governors in the nation.

But Mr. Obama’s political team and other party leaders have grown increasingly worried that the governor’s unpopularity could drag down Democratic members of Congress in New York, as well as the Democratic-controlled Legislature, in next fall’s election.

If Obama wants to avoid anyone dragging down Democrats next year, maybe he ought to step aside.

The move by the White House will probably bring new attention to Mr. Cuomo, now the most popular Democratic figure in the state. While only 30 percent of voters in a Quinnipiac poll last month approved of the job that Mr. Paterson was doing, 74 percent approved of Mr. Cuomo’s job performance.

The situation between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Paterson has been a complicated one. Mr. Cuomo is still haunted by the fierce backlash he stirred in 2002 when he decided to run in the Democratic primary for governor against H. Carl McCall, the first serious black candidate for governor.

Now, Mr. Cuomo effectively has the blessing of the nation’s first black president to run against New York’s first black governor. That will probably neutralize any criticism he may face among the governor’s prominent black allies, including Representative Charles B. Rangel of Harlem, who warned this year that the party would become racially polarized if Mr. Cuomo took on Mr. Paterson.

I guess Obama has no problem with a corrupt thug like Rangel hanging around. Granted, Rangel is a lifetime shoo-in in his district, but curiously Obama and the Democrats have no problem with a corrupt hack like him.