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Route to lieutenant governor post a circuitous one

BY MELANIE LEFKOWITZ | melanie.lefkowitz@newsday.com

11:21 PM EDT, March 10, 2008

There were those who were surprised when David A. Paterson became Eliot Spitzer's running mate.

Not surprised that Spitzer would choose Paterson, the scion of an illustrious Harlem political clan and a proven force as minority leader in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

The surprise was that a rising star like Paterson would even want to be lieutenant governor, a historically low-profile position.

"Members of my own party asked me, why would you give that opportunity to be his lieutenant governor?" Paterson, who hoped to wrest control of the Senate for the Democrats and become its majority leader, told a television reporter in December. "It's because I knew he would give me a role."

Friends and supporters praise Paterson's performance in his first year as lieutenant governor, where he focused on issues such as alternative energy, stem cell research and domestic violence. But now, with Spitzer's political career hanging in the balance, the past year may have merely been a preview for a breathtaking second act. If Spitzer resigns after being linked to a prostitution ring, Paterson is poised to emerge as the first African-American and first legally blind governor of New York State.

For Paterson, 53, it's been a winding path. Born sightless in one eye and with little vision in the other, his parents moved from Harlem to Hempstead when he was in sixth grade. On Long Island, he attended the only public school his parents, Basil and Portia Paterson, could find that would allow him to learn alongside sighted students instead of in separate classes.

Rather than struggling, he excelled, his former principal recalled Monday.

"He was extremely bright, an exceptional student," said Casmiro Liotta, who has since retired from the Fulton School. "He was very likable, he participated well. He did not have his handicap get in his way, he was on the stage in dramatics, and he was very, very, very active in the school."

Paterson went on to graduate from Columbia University and Hofstra Law School, where he stood out for his hardworking determination to succeed, said a former professor, Eric Lane.

Lane said he was especially struck by watching Paterson "play basketball at the Hofstra gym or at a gym on Sundays in Harlem, or run down Hempstead Turnpike on the side of the road," he said. "He has great fortitude and a great will to make up for the losses that he experiences as a result of his disability."

Paterson also has had advantages. As the son of Basil Paterson, a former New York secretary of state (who also ran, but lost, for lieutenant governor), he grew up surrounded by political kingmakers. He won his state Senate seat in Harlem just two years out of law school, when the local Democratic Party chose him to run after the former senator died in office.

Lane, who at the time was a lawyer for the state Senate Democrats, remembers his former student as a young lawmaker not content to always just go along with the party leadership.

"He was someone you had to deal with," Lane said. "David always had questions, and he had staff that asked questions. He was very engaged."

In 2002, Paterson engineered a stunning political coup, ousting the state Senate's minority leader and taking his place with the goal of aggressively seeking more seats for Democrats. By his own measure, he succeeded, winning four more Democratic seats in a legislature that is now only a one-vote majority for the Republicans. But instead of waiting to become the Senate majority leader -- arguably the second-most powerful position in state government -- he joined Spitzer's ticket in 2006, challenging expectations and some party leaders, including his own father, who had already endorsed another candidate for lieutenant governor.

Most recently, Paterson -- a supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton -- has been mentioned as a possible successor to Clinton in the U.S. Senate. If she won the presidency, her seat would be appointed by the governor.

Paterson lives in Harlem with his wife, Michelle, and their two children, Ashley and Alex.

State Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), who now holds Paterson's former seat, said he admires his predecessor's power to unite and lead.

"A kid from Harlem goes to Albany, where you have upstate, downstate, black, white, so on and so forth, and manages to bring everybody together around his leadership," Perkins said. "He was plucked to be the lieutenant governor, not for the sake of symbolism, obviously, but for the first time that I can recall, with a portfolio of substance."

Perkins said he also has been struck by Paterson's good relationship with Senate Republicans -- he is considered to be a friend of majority leader Joseph Bruno -- and his ability to make complex issues understandable.

"I watch how he presides and how members on both sides of the aisle seem to hold him in serious regard," he said. "He has been able to go beyond just being a legislator from Harlem."