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Paterson's political chess game gets underway

Dan Janison | dan.janison@newsday.com

November 22, 2008

For Gov. David A. Paterson, there is more at stake than the choice of a U.S. senator to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton pending a special election in 2010; there is also a statewide Democratic Party ticket to be shaped.

If Clinton resigns for the U.S. State Department, both the state's U.S. Senate seats will top the ballot in two years, as well as contests for governor, state attorney general, and state comptroller, followed by both houses of the State Legislature.

Paterson, presuming he seeks election to a full term, also would need to pick a running mate to fill the slot he left as lieutenant governor upon his ascension earlier this year.

The process ahead has many facets. Governors serve as heads of their state parties, but Paterson has not been in office long enough to be able to disregard dissent. He'll look to placate Democratic factions.

For example: If Paterson puts Rep. Nydia Velazquez in the Senate as some suggest, he could collect points both from those unhappy that he has noticeably few Latinos among his top appointees, and from those who say he must choose a woman to replace another. One question is whether he would then tap, say, Thomas Suozzi for lieutenant governor, to put a Catholic suburbanite with fundraising acumen on his card.

If Paterson taps state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a potential primary rival, for U.S. Senate, that sets off a big scramble for the AG's seat. Would it also then push the governor to choose, say, his current secretary of state, Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, as candidate for lieutenant governor?

Another question, for fun: If Paterson appointed Bill Clinton to succeed his wife (who recently ran to occupy her husband's old job), how would the political world react?

"This isn't linear," explained a seasoned political adviser.

Absent top aide Charles O'Byrne, who recently resigned amid a fiasco over failing to file income taxes, it is unclear who advises Paterson on this widely watched decision. Some believe his father, longtime Harlem politico Basil Paterson, and Rep. Charles Rangel, dean of the New York congressional delegation, will have input.

Opening the seat to election in 2010 to complete the current Clinton term, with the same seat to reopen in 2012 for a full term, also gives Republicans an added chance to recoup at least one statewide elected post from the Democrats, who now hold them all.

Could Rudy Giuliani, who has been considering a GOP run for governor in 2010, shift his sights toward that same U.S. Senate seat he began to campaign for eight years ago? No word yet. What about John Faso, one of the battered party's most loyal activists?

Behind the scenes, this multidimensional chess game is already under way.