Govenor Pataki, I am sure, can't help but feel compassion for Alan Hevesi. After all, if Hevesi had only followed the Pataki model and arranged to put Mrs. Hevesi's driver on the state party payroll...

I don't quite have this link thing down, but here's the URL for the Times story in which the Governor conceded that the Republican Party was paying $50,000 for his wife's personal assistant.

Note also that once again, a woman getting paid less than a man for similar assignments.

Ever been to Niagara Falls? The cataracts themselves are gorgeous. The city on the New York side is mostly a depressing shadow of its former self.

A few years ago, politicians in Albany and the Falls decided that the best way to reverse decades' worth of disasterous policy blunders and economic decline (see urban renewal, Robert Moses Parkway, high taxation, et al.) would be to carve out a sovereign Seneca Indian Nation enclave out of 50-odd acres of prime downtown Niagara Falls real estate. Under a federally approved compact between the State and the Seneca Nation, the Nation could build three casinos in Western New York - one on tribal land in Salamanca, one in Buffalo, and one in Niagara Falls. (Buffalo's casino is weeks from starting construction. The other two are already open).

The mantra used to be, “No Republican has won statewide office in New York State without Conservative Party backing since the late Senator Jacob Javits in 1974.” 

In today’s New York Times there is this line, “…the state Conservative Party, without whose backing no Republican has been elected governor since 1974.”

Checking the record just half way back and the spin becomes obvious.  Looking at statewide offices from 1984 to the present the Republican candidate who also ran on the Conservative line lost 18 races and won only nine, including Reagan for President in 1984.  Also, one Republican ran with out the Conservative line and lost. 

News coverage of the recent Siena College poll was dominated by how much Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton were beating their ill-fated Republican opponents; there was other interesting information.  Between Siena’s March poll and their May poll, George Pataki argued with legislative leaders about the state budget and began a tour of presidential primary states.  During this period, among likely voters in the state his favorable rating moved negative 30-points. 

Pataki’s favorable rating had been 53% favorable to 40%, a 13-point net positive after his hospital stay, which was up from January when he had only a 4-point positive.   By May, he dropped precipitously to a negative 38% favorable to 55% unfavorable, a net 17-point negative.  The governor even has a low rating among Republicans, who give him a paltry 49% to 45% favorability rating.  This, together with Bush’s declining poll numbers, adds to the problems facing Republican statewide candidates and should bring shock waves through the state’s Republican Congressional delegation.   

News coverage of the recent Siena College poll was dominated by how much Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton were beating their ill-fated Republican opponents; there was other interesting information.  Between Siena’s March poll and their May poll, George Pataki argued with legislative leaders about the state budget and began a tour of presidential primary states.  During this period, among likely voters in the state his favorable rating moved negative 30-points. 

Pataki’s favorable rating had been 53% favorable to 40%, a 13-point net positive after his hospital stay, which was up from January when he had only a 4-point positive.   By May, he dropped precipitously to a negative 38% favorable to 55% unfavorable, a net 17-point negative.  The governor even has a low rating among Republicans, who give him a paltry 49% to 45% favorability rating.  This, together with Bush’s declining poll numbers, adds to the problems facing Republican statewide candidates and should bring shock waves through the state’s Republican Congressional delegation.