Paterson: 'You Don't Give Up'

“Clearly I’m running for re-election,” Governor David Paterson said one day after his awkward meeting with President Obama, who telegraphed his desire to see Paterson exit before next year’s gubernatorial race.

Paterson tried to latch onto the legal victory handed to him by the state Court of Appeals today, which affirmed his authority to appoint a lieutenant governor. He said that during the court battle, “All I read is about how I’m going to lose” which “is very much like the discussion we were just having” about his political prospects.

Speaking to reporters at Columbia University, on West 168th Street, Paterson said the message is “you don’t give up. You don’t give up because people tell you what they think is going to happen. You don’t give up because people tell you who’s running and who’s not before they ever announce to do it. You don’t give up because you’re unpopular when you feel you’ve made the right decisions and when people get a chance to look at what you’re up against and reflect on it.”

He added, “And if you keep the attitude that you don’t give up, you may get to prove people, when the final tabulation is in, that you were doing the right thing. And that’s what happened with the court decision today.”

Paterson chalked up Obama’s intervention to Washington politics.

“I understand the president’s concern and I understand concern of staff members at the White House. If you look at it from their perspective, they haven’t exactly been able to govern in the first year of their administration in the way that other administrations have, where you would have, theoretically, a period in which the new administration is allowed to pass the needed pieces of legislation.”

But Paterson said Obama “was gracious to me. He asked me how I was feeling” and “he expressed a little chagrin about the process in this situation.”

Paterson also said it was untrue that he had been given a “direct message from a congressman” as had been reported in the New York Times, which named Representative Gregory Meeks as the messenger.

Afterward, the handful of lawmakers who joined Paterson for the announcement – which was about providing $600 million in federal stimulus money for research at various New York universities – tried sounding hopeful.

“There’s no reason to pull the plug on the guy year before the Democratic primary,” said Assemblyman Rory Lancman of Queens.

Lancman also said, “Yeah, I think the president make a mistake,” getting involved in the gubernatorial race. “Andrew Cuomo doesn’t need Barack Obama, a year from the primary, to promote him.".

“As far as people fall, people can rise,” said State Senator Toby Stavisky, also from Queens.

State Senator Eric Schneiderman tried refocusing the conversation onto policies and away from Paterson’s prospects. “This is not about a horse race 14 months from now," he said.