Apparently, rumor has it that New Yorkers hate Gov. David Paterson. I am shocked and appalled by this dramatic plot twist.
A poll released on Feb. 17 reported that, in a matchup against Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the governor lost by a 32 percent margin among Democrats. That, my friends, is what we call a good old-fashioned assault on Paterson’s electoral rectum.
All sarcasm aside, it’s no shock that Paterson has been murdered in the court of popular opinion. There are any number of reasons why people shouldn’t vote for Paterson in the next election. What surprised me were the specific reasons that voters chose to zero in on.
Over half of those polled said that they disapproved of the way Gov. Paterson handled the replacement of Hillary Clinton. Seemingly, his fair-weather friendship with Caroline Kennedy — wherein he released criticisms of her to the press after having sung her praises publicly — boiled everyone’s blood.
Um, what?
I don’t think I’ve even thought of Caroline Kennedy’s name since she withdrew from consideration. How Paterson dealt with choosing a successor for the Senate is not, shall we say, the biggest thing on his plate — or ours.
Let’s talk about New York state’s economic crisis and Paterson’s hair-brained schemes to get us out of trouble by slashing SUNY funding and raising taxes on Coca-Cola, as though our education is dispensable in the face of adversity.
Let’s talk about Paterson’s lack of priorities, spending valuable time and energy lambasting a sketch about his blindness on “Saturday Night Live” (which, by the way, is the only thing funny about “SNL” these days outside of Andy Samberg).
And still, pollsters report that “the Caroline Kennedy mix-up still haunts Governor Paterson”?
Either there’s something wrong with this poll (which I hope there is) or there’s something terribly wrong with New York voters. I’ll still count my blessings that Paterson is clearly on his way out, but I can only pray that, sooner or later, voters learn to pay attention to the real news.