Now it is official. The lords of public opinion have spoken. New
York City’s three major dailies — the Times,
Post and Daily News — have all endorsed Gov.
George Pataki for re-election. Actually the endorsements were not
unexpected. Whatever their devotion to high principle or their
ideological commitments, newspaper publishers see no point in
backing losers, and for a while now it has been clear that Carl
McCall, a Democrat, would not be New York’s next governor. Pataki,
it seems, is a shoo-in, so why waste an endorsement on McCall?
Nonetheless the three dailies did strike different notes when
they made their endorsements. Mort Zuckerman’s Daily News
was clearly the most enthusiastic. According to the News,
Pataki has reduced crime, improved education, and apparently made
the subways run on time. If he has a fault it is that he “has of
late made a habit of promising too much to too many — especially
to interests that are sure to demand much in return should their
votes help him win re-election.”
As an example, the News cited the hundreds of millions
Pataki doled out from the state treasury to fatten the salaries of
teachers and hospital workers. The News said this had
contributed to the $8 billion budget gap the state faced next year.
But, as the News serenely added, “We trust he will be able
to fill the hole he helped dig.”
Rupert Murdoch’s Post also credited Pataki with
reducing crime, improving education, and other good things. But
“regrettably,” the Post said, “the governor has been
tacking increasingly to port — a shift, we’d argue, that has
caused considerable damage to the state’s financial and economic
health.”
Meanwhile the Post suggested that Pataki was in its
debt, and that he owed it. The Post claimed that its
hard-hitting reporting was responsible for McCall’s demise. In
fact, someone tipped off the Post that McCall, as state
comptroller, in charge of the state’s pension funds, had used
official stationery to mention that his wife was looking for a job.
The Post then ran with the story, and while McCall was
never guilty of anything more than a minor indiscretion, the
Post has made the most of it. It said in the endorsement
editorial that when it “broke the news of McCall’s abuse of his
position as sole trustee of the state’s $105 billion pension fund
to benefit relatives, his poll numbers dropped like a rock down a
well.”
And finally, and most deliciously, Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s
Times. It said in a page-one story the week before last
that Pataki was leading McCall by 11 percentage points among
potential voters. Then it reported last week, in another page-one
story, that Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, was ready to write McCall off; the DNC would
not give his campaign more money. “I’ve got to put the resources
where we can win elections,” McAuliffe told the Times.
That put the liberal Times in an untenable position. It
did not want to back a loser, of course, but then it did not want
to back a Republican, either. Nonetheless it had no choice. McCall
was toast, and so it simply had to go with Pataki. Consequently it
said that while Pataki did not deserve a third term, and had been
mostly a flop as governor, he was a better choice than either
McCall or Tom Golisano, the billionaire candidate of the
Independence Party.
Meanwhile Golisano so far has spent $54 million on his campaign,
while Pataki has spent $34 million. The TV and radio ads for both
are ubiquitous, annoying and misleading. McCall, however, has spent
only $14 million. Rush Limbaugh — yes, Rush Limbaugh — has said
that Pataki is on the verge of “a slipshod victory,” and that
ordinary folks should contribute to McCall’s campaign so there will
be “a genuine competition.”
Well, why not? There should be a genuine competition, and
McCall, considered by most political observers to be a decent man,
deserves better treatment than he has been getting. After all, he
did knock the thuggish Andrew Cuomo out of the race, and since the
Times supports his opponent, that should be a point in his
favor. Conservatives, especially those few, those very few, in New
York City, should consider voting for McCall at the top of the
ballot, and then a straight Republican ticket thereafter. At least
this would say you believe in a two-party system.
