New York – Gov. Paterson, Dealing With Trash Talk is Part of Your Job

New York – It’s not the color of Gov. Paterson’s skin that’s dragging down his poll numbers, but the thinness of it.

Nobody likes a whiner, and that’s exactly what Paterson sounds like when he complains about being picked on because of his race.

Successful politicians have to learn to take criticism gracefully, no matter how nasty or unfair. They know that letting their anger and hurt feelings show will make them look defensive and weak. But Paterson takes offense at insults – real and imagined – much too easily for his own good.

His latest hissy fit began when Daily News columnist Errol Louis, during an interview on WWRL, asked the governor about his six-feet-under approval ratings and the growing pressure on him, mostly from fellow Democrats, to drop out of next year’s election.

Paterson launched into a diatribe about allegedly biased media coverage, arguing that the abuse leveled at him and other black elected officials shows “we’re not in the postracial period.”

Lingering racism – which no doubt exists – doesn’t come close to explaining Paterson’s spectacular popularity plunge. Not when 54% of African-American voters tell the Siena College poll they’d prefer to have someone else running the state.

Maybe Paterson thought his race talk would come across as feisty – and woo back some of those black voters. It didn’t work. Even black politicians who still support the governor, such as state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), publicly advised him to unplay the race card.

But Paterson stepped in it again a few days later, telling blogger Gerson Borrero, “I don’t think the media has acted in a racist way, but I have felt stereotyped at times.”

His lame example? The fact that he was called the “accidental governor” after taking over from Eliot Spitzer.

This is the same unfounded gripe he made in a speech to the NAACP last year, when he said: “Nobody called Teddy Roosevelt an accidental President. Nobody called Truman an accidental President. And nobody called LBJ an accidental anything.”

But the word “accidental” was, in fact, liberally applied to all three of those men. It’s not even necessarily an insult. It means “occurring unexpectedly.” Did Paterson expect Spitzer to quit in a prostitution scandal?

Paterson also whined to Borrero, “It seems I have to work twice as hard as others” – which he said while taking time off in the Hamptons for at least the second time this month.

Paterson should quit complaining. Listening to trash talk is the flip side of what most New Yorkers would consider a pretty plush gig. He gets the power to sign bills, a mansion to live in, a $179,000 salary, the ability to fly around the state at taxpayer expense and the chance to be photographed with Paris Hilton’s mother.

Not to mention a guaranteed place in history as New York’s first black governor, accidental or not.

If he can’t stand the heat, he knows what to do.