I never thought that Pataki would try again....

This is a picture of the former governor of New York state, George Pataki. Officially (at the time I wrote this entry), he's now the second "major" candidate from New York to be running for the presidency. And in certain ways, he is the most qualified candidate (at this time) of those who have formally announced that they are running for POTUS, having served as governor of New York for 3 terms.  Executive branch experience (in either state or federal government) counts for a lot when one is the president, and this man (in any other era) would be a shoo-in for the nomination. Sadly, we live in a very strange era - where one party has too many candidates running for POTUS, and the other has too few candidates running for POTUS.

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I am familiar with Pataki since his days in Peekskill.  His family had a farm just off of the Bear Mountain Parkway, as it loops around the city proper. The property was worth much more developed into housing than it ever would have been worth as a small farm in Westchester county - and I only wonder how conservationists let that property slip through their grasps.  (Please note: Westchester county already had a working farm (Muscoot Farm) which it used to preserve part of its heritage - one could argue that we didn't need another within a half hour's drive.) 

When serving in public capacity, Pataki had a local office in the heart of Peekskill - and it had one of the better storefronts on the block. I wonder how much he was responsible for the gradual long term revival of Peekskill as a small city. At least I haven't yet heard a lot of negative scuttlebutt from my friends in Peekskill regarding this man.  If he is able to avoid drinking too much of the GOP Kool Aid, he may just be the candidate they need to defeat Hillary.

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We will find  out a lot about Pataki over the next few months. For example, his position on abortion and guns did not reflect that of the GOP base.  Will he flip positions to gain votes? I'm not sure. But he is front loading a lot of effort into the early primary states to get momentum as early as possible.  One problem - Chris Christie is doing the same thing. If I were Pataki, I'd remember one thing - Christie will cross that bridge when he comes to it!