Playing out the final scene of an almost Shakespearean drama, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace today after revelations that he had been caught on wiretaps arranging to meet a high-priced call girl in a Washington, D.C., hotel.
History will be made Monday when the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer takes effect and Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson becomes the first African-American governor in the state’s history.
Paterson, who is also legally blind, is seen by both Democrats and Republicans, as a bright and congenial person, someone whose style is the opposite of the more abrasive and volatile Spitzer.
Paterson, 53, represented Harlem in the New York State Senate for more than 20 years until he was elected lieutenant governor in 2006.
Even though he holds the state’s second highest office, he has had a low profile statewide, as have many lieutenant governors.
“I’m learning what the title really means,” Paterson told The New York Times last December. He added that people are “focused on what the governor is doing and could care less about what the lieutenant governor is doing.”
David Paterson
Until Monday’s bombshell news of Spitzer’s connection to prostitutes, Paterson was seen as biding his time in the post, waiting to run for the U.S. Senate when, and if, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, became president.
A supporter of Clinton, Paterson has actively campaigned on her behalf.
But Paterson’s family and political experience would prepare him to take over as governor.
His father, Basil Paterson, also served in the New York State Senate. After an unsuccessful run to be lieutenant governor, he later was the state’s secretary of state, serving under Gov. Hugh Carey.
A graduate of Columbia University and Hofstra Law School, David Paterson had an eye infection as an infant that left him blind in one eye and legally blind in the other.
Elected to a vacancy in the State Senate in 1985, Paterson was elected to a full term the next year.
After he became minority leader of the Senate in 2002, Paterson reflected on what the achievement meant, given the discrimination he had faced because of his blindness.
“I have had this desire my whole life to prove people wrong, to show them I could do things they didn’t think I could do. This is just another, ” he told the Times.
Spitzer’s decision to choose Paterson as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006 made sense to political observers.
“Mr. Paterson’s gifts - penetrating intelligence, an immediate human connection and an inspiring story of overcoming near-blindness - make him a natural running mate for the stiffer, privileged, decisive Mr. Spitzer,” wrote Ben Smith in The New York Observer.
Unlike Spitzer, Paterson is known for his ability to get along with Republicans, including Sen. Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader who has frequently clashed with Spitzer.
When Paterson becomes governor, the lieutenant governor’s post will remain vacant until the 2010 election. Bruno becomes next in line to be governor.
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