Paterson on Harlem's Great Day

Governor David Paterson walked into the voting booth with his wife Michelle today, but said afterward, “I pulled the lever myself.”

Paterson did not use a Braille ballot when voting for Barack Obama. (He doesn’t read Braille.) Paterson conducted a walking press conference with reporters while on line to vote at the same Harlem elementary school where Representative Charlie Rangel voted hours earlier.

“I’ve never seen so many people stand on line for so long and be so excited,” Paterson said. “I’ve never seen so many people look so happy, even though they have to wait over an hour to vote.” He said the “struggles” of African-Americans, women, Hispanics, the disabled, elderly and others “may all be congealed in this sort of symbolic moment. But symbolic moments have often been the catalyst for great change in this country.”

When asked by a radio reporter about the Bradley effect possibly sinking Obama today, Paterson said, “There have been so many times in this neighborhood when we thought we’d be treated like everybody else, and it turned out that we didn’t. It’s so many times that we pay taxes, we fought hard overseas for this country, and went back and found that prisoners of war from other countries were treated better than us.” Paterson said, “I can understand that skepticism, that superstition.”