Albany, NY – Paterson: I’m Being Treated Unfairly Because I’m Black

Albany, NY – Gov. David Paterson played the race card in a big way today, suggesting he is facing tougher questions about his performance and political viability than the governors of most other struggling states because he is black.

During a wide-ranging interview with DN columnist and radio personality Errol Louis this morning, Paterson said he feels he feels an effort is being “orchestrated” to get him to bow out of the 2010 race.

Paterson alleged he and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick – both of whom are the first African Americans to hold their respective positions and are tanking in the polls – are being treated unfairly by the media due to the color of their skin.

The governor said he thinks the same thing is happening to the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, who also seen his approval rating drop due to his controversial efforts to overhaul the health care system.

“This state is not in the trouble that Michigan is in Pennsylvania is in and Massachusetts is in, but you don’t see in those other states this crescendo about getting rid of the governor just because we’re in a recession,” Paterson told Louis this morning on AM 1600 WWRL.

“And I submit that the same kind of treatment that Deval Patrick is receiving right now in Massachusetts, and I’m receiving; the way in which the New York State Senate was written about, calling them a bunch of people with thick necks – they’re talking about Malcolm Smith and John Sampson – that we’re not in the post-racial period.”

“And the reality is that the next victim on the list and you see it coming is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than try to reform a health care system that’s not ten percent of GDP and will be 20 percent of GDP in the next four years only because he’s trying to make change.”

Paterson lashed out at the media, which has been highly critical of him in recent months.

“If these people who are writing the articles, Errol, had to run the state, they couldn’t run it for five minutes because they’re about to go under themselves. And the fact is that this state is alive and well, will balance its budget in September and will be around a lot longer than their outlets are.”

He singled out the Post’s Fred Dicker, author of the anti-Senate column referenced above and a number of stories supportive of Paterson’s potential 2010 primary challenger, AG Andrew Cuomo, saying:

“If I went left, Dicker would write a column saying I should have gone right. Every week. Every single week. When you write 40 columns that are the same, you’ve lost your objectivity.”

The governor lamented the fact that black media outlets aren’t coming to his defense, calling out NY1’s Dominic Carter for grilling the Rev. Al Sharpton last night about Paterson’s recent late-night appearance at the Taj nightclub.

(The governor insisted he was gone long before midnight, contrary to a Brooklyn blogger’s report).

Paterson pushed back against Louis’ efforts to end the interview, saying: “I’m just getting warmed up.” Without naming names, he slammed Cuomo and his allies for trying to get him not to run in 2010 and insisted it won’t work.

“Even if it didn’t work out, what is the shame of running for re-election and losing?” Paterson said.
“It would be my highest honor to have served as governor of this state, to make the tough decisions – the decisions that others before me made – and then lose and then look up a few years, later like in the case of Mario Cuomo, and people now say, ‘Wow. He was doing a good job. He had to make some tough decisions back then.’”

“There’s no shame in losing. The shame is that you don’t fight.”