FACTBOX-Political opening for New York AG Andrew Cuomo
Feb 26 (Reuters) - Embattled Democratic New York Governor David Paterson has decided to withdraw from the race for governor and will not seek election to a full four-year term this year, New York media reported on Friday. [ID:nN26258051]
That could clear a path for Andrew Cuomo, the state attorney general, because he would not have to face the governor in the Democratic primary. Cuomo has a commanding lead in public opinion polls and would be considered the gubernatorial favorite to run against the likely Republican nominee, former Long Island congressman Rick Lazio.
Some facts about Andrew Cuomo:
* The 52-year-old is a son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, a Democrat who held the job from 1983 to 1994. Mario Cuomo had once been seen as a potentially strong candidate for president but never ran for the office.
* Andrew Cuomo served as former U.S. President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He ran for the New York governorship in 2002 but withdrew in favor of H. Carl McCall, the state's first African-American comptroller, who went on to lose to Republican Gov. George Pataki in the general election.
* Cuomo was elected New York attorney general in 2006 to succeed Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat who boosted the office's profile and influence through investigations of Wall Street and white-collar crime. The election came on the same day that Spitzer was elected governor and Paterson lieutenant governor. Paterson succeeded Spitzer as governor in March 2008 when the latter resigned in a scandal over his involvement in a prostitution ring as a client.
* Cuomo is credited for picking up where Spitzer left off in investigating financial crimes. Among his successes is forcing 14 major banks and broker-dealers to unfreeze more than $60 billion of so-called auction-rate securities that had become illiquid. He has also won several guilty pleas in a criminal probe into corruption involving the state's pension fund, one of the nation's largest.
* On Feb. 4, 2010, Cuomo filed civil fraud charges against Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and two top executives over the company's controversial takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co.
* Cuomo had three daughters with Kerry Kennedy before the couple divorced in 2003. His former wife is a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, who was a U.S. senator from New York when he was slain in 1968.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York, Jon Stempel and Joan Gralla; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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For too long David Paterson has used his office, whether it be as head of the Senate Minority, Lt. Governor or as Governor, as an employment agency for his unqualified friends, associates, and gal pals – David Johnson, Clemmie Harris, Michael Jones-Bey, Gabrielle Turner, Indira Noel…. This practice needs to stop now.
His staff and all his friends that he has placed in jobs need to be cleaned out as well…GET HIM AND THEM OUT NOW.
This UN-ELECTED GOV needs to go now, before more damage is done and more of the wrong people profit from his office.
The David Johnson episode provides further evidence that David Paterson is just up not up to the task of governing. He does not have what it takes to govern effectively. “The Democratic Conference Organizational and Structural Report” detailing the workings of Paterson’s office while he was Senate Minority leader in the New York State Senate is an objective assessment of this clowns ability to manage or more precisely mismanage.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM110_demreportfinal.html
This scathing report indicated that Paterson’s Senate Minority office, headed by the supremely incompetent Michael Jones-Bey, was completely dysfunctional. Mr. Jones-Bey, a childhood friend of Paterson, who is now incredulously Director of Division of Minority & Women’s Business Development at New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation, was reported to be more interested in partying and boozing up with staff than working.
Wow! You can be a total bozo, ex-felon, or women batterer, but if you a friend or gal pal and work for David Paterson you get promoted and protected for such behavior.
TIME TO GO.
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