Tampa Adult Entertainment: Obama flies into epicenter of NY political flap
September 21, 2009… A wonderful man, the governor of the great state of New York, David Paterson, is in the house,” he said before delivering his address at the college in Troy, across the Hudson River from New York’s capital.
In contrast, Obama then introduced the attorney general as a close ally and joked with the hard-charging, headline-grabbing Cuomo, calling him “your shy and retiring attorney general.”
“Andrew’s doing great work enforcing the laws that need to be enforced,” Obama said as he cast a warm smile toward Cuomo and the two made eye contact. Obama didn’t look at Paterson in his introduction.
“I think that you would have to be pretty dense not to get the message,” said Doug Muzzio, a politics professor at New York City’s Baruch College, who viewed video of the event afterward.
Paterson was lieutenant governor under Democrat Eliot Spitzer and ascended in March 2008 after Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal. His popularity has plunged and the state’s economic situation has sharply deteriorated.