the buzz log

Boy it sure isn't easy being a governor these days. If you're not being impeached for trying to sell the president's former Senate seat to the highest bidder, or forced to resign due to involvement in a high-end call girl scandal, you're probably taking on pariah status after being caught returning from your Argentine love nest with a "soul mate" not your wife.

So many different types of political ruin have befallen our states' chief executives the past few years, you may have thought all the possiblities exhausted by now. Not true, as Web users are taking note today of yet another Guv-on-the-run. News that President Obama has actually requested that Democratic Governor David Paterson of New York bow out of his 2010 re-election campaign has become a top draw in Yahoo! Buzz. As reported in the New York Times, AP, and Bloomberg, Obama wants Paterson to remove himself out of concern that his low poll numbers portend almost certain defeat and a potential drag on New York Democrats up for election in the House, as well as Kirsten Gillibrand in the Senate.

Although this governor's potential trip to Palookaville isn't generating the same salacious material as his predecessors', it's causing a stir nonetheless. From the New York Times:

"The move against a sitting Democratic governor represents an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the president, and is a delicate one, given that Mr. Paterson is one of only two African-American governors in the nation."

Republican National Committee head Michael Steele also raised the issue of race when he said in an interview, "I found that to be stunning that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection."

As for Governor Paterson, he stated that he has no plans to withdraw from the race.

More buzz sure to follow...

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