It’s pretty official at this point: George Pataki has left the building. No word yet on whether he’ll physically establish residency in New Hampshire, or Iowa for that matter, but New York is not too high on his agenda.
From the Daily News:
News flash! Several sources reported sightings of Gov. Pataki in New York City yesterday, but unfortunately these have not yet been independently verified since so few city residents are able to recall what he looks like. In the meantime, photos of the man in question have been sent to New Hampshire for identification.
New Hampshire is where Pataki spent Wednesday night, while the transit-strike negotiations and the fate and future of millions of New Yorkers hung in the balance. He was up there pursuing his presidential ambitions. Priorities, you know.
Pataki’s main legacy-building enterprise was to be a new and shining World Trade Center. In a sense, this will be true, and here’s why: the rebuilding process is characterized by muddle, indecision, cost overruns and really, an astonishing lack of any tangible results.
To wit, the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower was laid last year, in a nicely staged ceremony calculated to make Pataki and his struggling leader look good before a hard-fought election. Since then, true to the republican habit of pretending that photo-ops are an acceptable substitute for real policy, nothing has happened.
The World Trade Center was destroyed 1,558 days ago. Pataki will leave office in 382 days. It’s probably with that timetable in mind that he handed $1.6 billion in Liberty Bonds to Larry Silverstein yesterday.
The problem is that you can’t just erase a few years of vacillation by throwing around billions. Nor can you compensate for what will, by the day he leaves office, have been two years of neglecting state business. At this rate, Pataki’s legacy will be one that he likely had not contemplated: a Democratic sweep of the New York State elections next November. To put that into context: the last time Democrats held the governorship and controlled both houses of the legislature was after the election of 1934. Likely, George Pataki will deliver a legacy that this state has not seen in generations.
Thank you, George. Now, about that possible transit strike...
