The New York Times-20080126-As State Primary Nears- Pataki Is Barely Visible
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As State Primary Nears, Pataki Is Barely Visible
When Gov. George E. Pataki left office last January, he was the dominant Republican politician in New York. Over three terms, he had shattered fund-raising records and had racked up double-digit victory margins in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, becoming a national political figure in the process. Mr. Pataki ruled Albany for so long that even now some swatches of state bureaucracy are still run by his political appointees.
Yet as the Feb. 5 New York presidential primary draws near -- a contest that Mr. Pataki once envisioned as central to his own White House ambitions -- the former governor is virtually absent from the political scene.
His aides are scattered among businesses, consulting firms and presidential candidates. His political action committees raised only about half a million dollars last year, and spent most of it on travel, consulting fees and office expenses. And he has yet to endorse another Republican for president, though aides said he is likely to do so soon.
George has disappeared more completely than anybody, said James D. Featherstonhaugh, a Republican lobbyist in Albany.
Which is not to say that Mr. Pataki has not been keeping busy. Last March, he joined Chadbourne & Parke, a Manhattan corporate law firm, to give regulatory and legal advice on environmental and energy issues, his calling cards as governor. More recently, he began a consulting firm with a former aide, John P. Cahill, to do similar work for private clients including Related West-Pac, for which Mr. Pataki is providing environmental sustainability advice on a major ski development in Colorado.
That work, friends and aides say, has kept Mr. Pataki traveling almost constantly. It has also allowed Mr. Pataki the chance to raise his national profile on the policy issues that matter most to him -- like global warming and energy independence -- while amassing a measure of personal wealth, much as Rudolph W. Giuliani has done with his consulting business, Giuliani Partners.
I think he's active and stays involved, but I think he's more active with a national outlook, rather than a state one, said David M. Catalfamo, a spokesman for Mr. Pataki.
Mr. Pataki, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is also finishing up a term as a United States public delegate to the United Nations, a kind of ambassadorial position, to which he was appointed last year by President George W. Bush. That role has kept him from political fund-raising or campaigning, said Mr. Catalfamo.
In avoiding overt politicking, Mr. Pataki is to some extent hewing to tradition. Like former presidents, former New York governors generally avoid criticizing their successors. Those who have aspired to play kingpin have usually failed, regardless of their party. Likewise, Mr. Pataki has sought to stay above the fray, friends say, though those close to him privately seethed when Gov. Eliot Spitzer, delivering his inauguration speech last year with Mr. Pataki in the audience, said that like Rip van Winkle, New York has slept through much of the past decade.
Mr. Pataki is also constrained by circumstance. The 2008 presidential race already includes two big-name New York politicians, Mr. Giuliani and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. A third -- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg -- is pondering an independent run.
Most of the Republican establishment in New York has endorsed Mr. Giuliani, with whom Mr. Pataki has at times had a frosty relationship. The two clashed in 1994 after Mr. Giuliani, who was then the mayor, endorsed Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, a Democrat, for re-election instead of Mr. Pataki.
Other New York Republicans favor Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Moreover, like most three-term governors, Mr. Pataki did not leave office at the peak of his popularity. According to New York Times poll data, Mr. Pataki had a 52 percent approval rating in September 2006, a few months before leaving office.
And while nearly all of Mr. Giuliani's former top aides were hired at Giuliani Partners, preserving the former mayor's inner circle as he pondered options, Mr. Pataki's new consulting firm does not resemble a shadow cabinet. Nearly all of his top former staffers work elsewhere, whether at other consulting firms or for other presidential candidates.
These days, the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, controls the state Republican apparatus; Joseph N. Mondello, a Nassau County Republican, is the party chair. Both men have had rocky relationships with Mr. Pataki over the years, and though there is little sign today of bitterness between the Pataki and Bruno camps, state Republicans do not yet seem inclined to put Mr. Pataki to use.
He's been in touch, he offered to be helpful to us where we can use him, said John E. McArdle, a Bruno spokesman. We have not asked him to do anything, but he has offered to be helpful when he can.
By some measures, though, Mr. Pataki has not acted like a politician eager to win new friends and allies. Mr. Pataki's political action committees made only three political contributions in the last year, according to an analysis by the New York Public Interest Research Group: $1,000 to the Manhattan Republican Party, $400 to a county Republican committee in New Hampshire, and $5,000 to the upstate Congressional campaign of Alexander Treadwell, who chaired the New York Republican Party for several years.
Nor does Mr. Pataki, a youthful 62 years old, appear to have embraced the role of party elder the way that Hugh L. Carey and other past governors have. He did not attend last May's annual state party dinner, held in Manhattan and headlined by Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain. And Mr. Pataki, never much of a backslapper even at the height of his power, seems even less eager to swim in local political waters now.
Carey and Cuomo reveled in their ex-governor status within the party, said Jeffrey M. Stonecash, a political science professor at Syracuse University. They would always show up at the State of the State addresses or the party functions. They enjoyed it. I think Pataki is just done. It's like he's said, 'I'm outta here.'
For some friends and former allies, however, Mr. Pataki's behavior since leaving office has had a familiar feel to it.
He has always been a cautious -- some would say procrastinating -- politician, favoring carefully calculated risks over splashy gambles. Notably, the former governor has eschewed lobbying work, the most common career path for politicians who do not expect to run for office again.
He is said to stay in close touch with his former staffers, and gathered many of them together this year to mark the anniversary of Sept. 11. He has met or spoken with all of the major Republican candidates for president.
The race for the Republican presidential nomination remains fluid, and with it, the future shape of the party itself. Should the Republican Party continue to struggle, friends suggested, Mr. Pataki could be in a position to re-enter the debate and influence the party's future direction.
[Illustration]PHOTO: Gov. George E. Pataki, shown at a 2006 news conference, has faded from view, even as the political world is beginning to focus on New York and other Feb. 5 primary states. (PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN MARSHALL MANTEL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. B4)