The ‘ol perfessor Casey Stengel used to say that “it is very difficult making predictions, especially about the future.”  With that qualifier in mind, Governor Pataki’s re-election prospects this year seem quite bright.  According to our latest survey of likely NYS voters he leads Comptroller Carl McCall by 16%. 

Businessman Tom Golisano trails far behind, receiving significant support only upstate where he is currently attracting 15%.  Interestingly, he is drawing from both Pataki and McCall fairly evenly, although he provided an indirect benefit to McCall during the primary season when he waged a vigorous TV ad campaign targeted at Pataki. 

Pataki’s large lead right now is owing to his strong approval rating – 61% of registered voters rate the job he is doing in office as either excellent or good - and the fact that 55% of New York voters think the state is headed in the right direction.  These figures provide an important barometer of how Pataki is doing and contribute to what is at present a comfortable margin. 

The right direction question is a particularly useful way to gage an incumbent’s re-election prospects.  Of likely voters who think the state is headed in the right direction Pataki gets 70%; of those who think the state is headed in the wrong direction, Pataki gets only 16%.

Looking at this from a more historical perspective, in 1994, when Pataki was trying to unseat then Governor Mario Cuomo, the numbers were 24/62, practically the reverse of what they are today.  That meant the electorate was in a far grumpier mood than it is today when it sizes up the way things are and what it wants from its political leadership.

Interestingly, over two-thirds of New York voters think the state is in an economic recession.  But that bad news on the economy is not being laid at the governor’s doorstep.  Even among likely voters who think the state is in an economic recession, Pataki leads McCall by 44% to 34%.

This may be a product of how long these negative numbers on the economy have existed – no shock there, or that voters do not see either McCall, who has placed education as his main focus, or Golisano, a candidate with limited minor party appeal, as better choices on economic matters than Pataki.  Others may place stock in the view that the economic downturn is a national phenomenon. 

The political bottom line may be that, as noted, voters see things as headed in the right direction and may not feel a compelling reason to oust the incumbent.

But, Pataki’s political re-election fortunes were not always so strong.  In April of 2001, Andrew Cuomo, you remember him, trailed Pataki by only 3% and McCall was just 10 points behind.  Following the tragedy of 9/11 later that fall, Pataki’s margins grew to 30 points.

The indirect impact of 9/11 of this election cycle has been a desire on the part of voters for calm, reassurance in their political leaders.  Governor Pataki is viewed in this way, as not being particularly polarizing.  New Yorkers do not have a love-hate relationship with him… They view him generally as doing a good job.

An additional impact from 9/11 on our electoral landscape has been how NYC is being treated differently politically.  This year, you can run for statewide office as a Republican without clamoring about an upstate and downstate separation in the state.

Governor Pataki has successfully by moving to the political center and developing health care initiatives, appealed more directly to Latinos and Environmentalists, He has positioned himself nicely for this campaign.   When he first assumed statewide office in 1995, more voters viewed him as a political conservative.  Now, he is seen as a political moderate.

This is also paying rich dividends for him in this campaign.  He is currently attracting 30% of Democrats statewide and 45% of voters overall in NYC.  He leads by 2:1 in the suburbs surrounding NYC.  These are all winning numbers for him.

While some of Pataki’s success is owing to circumstances and some to his campaign strategy, Carl McCall has not adjusted to the changing technology of campaign give-and-take.

In an era were responses to political attacks must be launched in the same news cycle, during what was dubbed as “Lettergate” McCall took a one-day negative story and drew it out for six days.

McCall’s campaign has not been taking the charge to Pataki, exactly what a challenger must be doing.  Instead, McCall has been largely on the defensive.  If you dropped in from outer space, you’d think that McCall was the incumbent having failed to create jobs with the pension fund and having failed to lead the school system.  While during the time, he provided jobs to friends and family.   He looks like an incumbent defending his record, not the challenger.

To make this a more competitive race, McCall must, in the closing weeks, take the fight to Pataki.  He must rally his base, Democrats, in a state where there are five Democrats for every three Republicans… and especially in NYC where he must win big…

And he must look for places to chip away at Pataki’s support… Take the suburbs where security is the number two issue among voters overall and statewide where it’s the number one issue among Pataki voters….

Regardless of your position on Indian Point, it makes good political sense for McCall to make the closing of the plant a rallying cry…It won’t cost him votes he’s already getting and it might help him with swing voters; to make some in-roads into the Pataki totals.

But, this will take money… and that is something the McCall candidacy has only in short supply.  His cash to spend in the closing weeks is dwarfed by the Pataki war chest, and he even runs the risk, upstate, of being marginalized by Golisano. Voters may come to see Golisano as the stronger alternative to Pataki.