What Gov. P and the Mets Have in Common

Gov. David Paterson, as lowly as the '62 Mets in his recent polls, started to introduce Paterson 2.0 this week, although it may seem a lot like an old version.
    
But for him, that's good.
    
This week he showed sparks of his former disarming humor at the swearing in of the state's new chief judge, using a weapon he seemed to sheath for months while under personal attack by unions, mocked as clueless on “Saturday Night Live,'' and repeatedly mired in his own missteps and mixed signals chronicled in bold face headlines.
    
“This is an extraordinary day in the history of New York state jurisprudence,'' Paterson said at Wednesday's formal ceremony at the state's highest court, “a governor is in court voluntarily.''
    
Last week he also showed his old resolve by standing up to the Legislature and special interests, the kind of moxie that made him a star during the first months in the office he assumed when Eliot Spitzer resigned in March 2008 after he was implicated in a prostitution investigation. Paterson scolded legislators seeking to steer some federal stimulus money to their districts, he called the bluff of a powerful hospital lobbyists running nasty TV ads against Paterson and his proposed budget cuts by offering a public debate, and ridiculed special interests that are spending millions of dollars on TV attack ads that claim they can't afford Paterson's cuts in a fiscal crisis.
    
And he again shook up his team, but this time it was more substantial and included a key member of his original inner circle. Despite some political risk, he brought former chief of staff Charles O'Byrne back as a leading political adviser. O'Byrne resigned under fire in October after it was revealed he paid $300,000 in back taxes.
    
“It's not at all too late,'' said Steven Greenberg, pollster for the Siena College Research Institute, which last week found Paterson hitting new lows in approval, likeability and electability. “We are 18 months before a potential primary, 20 months before a general election.
    
“The governor himself said he had no transition and that he probably should have dealt with some of these staff issues sooner,'' Greenberg noted. “But I think New Yorkers should look at this as seeing the governor has assembled a government team and a political team. Let's see how he does.''
    
Lee Miringoff of the Marist College poll said the moves are symbolic as well as structural.
    
“You want to show you are still in the arena,'' he said. “But the proof is in the results.''
    
Paterson's pain made front-runners of potential rivals in 2010 -- Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Republican Rudy Giuliani -- as well as opening an opportunity for Republicans, who lost their last power base -- the Senate -- in November's elections.
    
“I like David, I served with him, but his management skills have not been coming through very strong,'' said Republican Sen. Thomas Libous of Broome County. “He has not shown the leadership qualities we need in these very difficult times. I know he's trying to do the right thing by reducing spending, but it is more than that ... You have to come up with creative solutions.''
    
“It's now becoming common talk in the diners,'' Libous said from his Southern Tier district. “That's not good for New York.''
    
But he said last week's changes are welcomed. He praised Paterson's choices of Lawrence S. Schwartz as secretary to the governor, who established a strong record in the Westchester county executive's office, and the return of O'Byrne.
    
“Charles O'Byrne was responsive and things got done,'' Libous said. “Larry Schwartz is a good man with good political instincts.''
    
“When you take office in a crisis, it takes awhile to get your feet,'' said Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester.
 
“The mistake is not making changes when you think you have to. The people he put in now are competent and decisive.''
    
O'Byrne, a former Jesuit priest with the frame of a bartender, was the workaholic confidant and bouncer for Paterson who has gotten along to a large extent because people like him. That worked well for him as a state senator, but most executives need someone who can say “no,'' loudly and isn't afraid to shout it to anyone.
    
Now O'Byrne has Paterson's ear and back again. Inside the chamber, they say O'Byrne will be one of the 20 people in the room when Paterson weighs his biggest decisions.
    
This week Paterson also parted from his hired political consulting firm, Global Strategies Group, and hired a new communications director, Peter Kauffmann, a strategic and crisis communications expert for The Glover Park Group who's a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer and a former press secretary to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
    
So consider this past week a reintroduction. But with a fiscal crisis, many lawmakers and lobbyists calling for even more spending, $24 billion of federal stimulus money to manage and a state budget due April 1, it will have to stick this time if he's still wants to win election in 2010 to the job he assumed 49 weeks ago.