BUFFALO — Rudolph W. Giuliani has not said he is running for governor, but Gov. David A. Paterson expressed confidence Wednesday that he could beat Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, in next year’s election.
That also means Mr. Paterson is confident he will be the Democratic candidate for governor.
“Mayor Giuliani said two weeks ago that we made reckless decisions with finances,” Mr. Paterson told reporters during the state Democratic Party’s fall conference here. “Why doesn’t he tell us exactly what he would have done?”
In defending his record, Mr. Paterson pointed to budget cuts he had made — though overall state spending has been rising — and to the state’s credit rating, which has held steady as other states’ ratings have gone down.
“If he thinks he could have done better, he should tell us,” Mr. Paterson said, adding, “He’s not bringing any new ideas.”
“I think I can beat Mayor Giuliani,” he added.
Mr. Giuliani fares far better in public opinion polls than Mr. Paterson, but the former mayor has yet to jump into the race for governor. Mr. Paterson’s comments followed a spirited speech in which he vowed to run and occasionally banged on the lectern to make his point.
Not all his listeners seemed enthusiastic about his message, though.
About one-fourth of the way through his 20-minute speech, he proclaimed: “Fellow Democrats, I am running for governor of the State of New York!” But only a small number of the scores of people in the ballroom rose to give him a standing ovation, a sign of the divisions within the party over who should run for governor.
The governor got a more enthusiastic response — laughter — when he opened his speech by asking the attendees: “So, how was your week?”
Perhaps referring to his troubles with the White House — the Obama administration has asked him to withdraw from the governor’s race — he said, “Where I come from, we believe you don’t give up just because other people are telling you what to do.”
In a hallway at the hotel where the conference is taking place, the governor encountered Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, the man many Democratic leaders believe, or hope, will be the party’s candidate for governor in 2010. The two rivals chatted amiably for a couple of minutes on Wednesday morning before Mr. Cuomo patted the governor on the shoulder and said “O.K., buddy, go get ’em.”
Mr. Cuomo, for his part, continued to dance around the question of whether he would enter the race. When it was pointed out that the “Andrew Cuomo 2010” banner hanging onstage did not specify an office, he joked, “We didn’t want to pay for the extra letters.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/nyregion/01paterson.html?bl
Topic: Paterson Says He’s Sure He Can Beat Giuliani, if It Comes to That (Read 1097 times)