The saddest Republican candidacy of them all
But this is all analyzing the Pataki platform much too closely. The more basic reason why Republicans have tuned out his cries for attention is that he’s simply not relevant anymore, and really hasn’t been for a while. Sure, he ran one of the country’s largest states for 12 years, but he wasn’t even the most famous Republican from New York during that time — Rudy was. Nor did he rack up any particularly notable achievements as governor, no innovative policy advances that captured the national media’s interest or established him in conservative circles as the One To Watch. He came across as a thoroughly average, thoroughly boring governor. And now he comes across as a thoroughly average, thoroughly boring former governor whose name hasn’t been on a ballot since 2002.
Pataki is the guy who, after 15 minutes of agonizing internal debate, orders the chocolate-vanilla twist at the froyo store, then secretly only eats the vanilla because that’s all he really wanted in the first place, but he did not want to appear boring.