Former NY governor George Pataki only hurts the ones he sorta cares about. Plus, he has studied and refined the metaphysically nuanced endorsement techniques of former U.S. senator John Danforth, who last month included his personal choice to lead the free world, Mitt Romney, among the many "characters who are seeking the nomination," none of whom "appears to most Republicans to be absolute standouts."
Building on Danforth's exotically clever, push-pull seduction of Taoist-like inscrutability, Master Pataki said in support of Mitt yesterday:
[H]e has a number of problems. It's hard for blue-collar families like mine to identify with him. It's hard for economic conservatives to identify with him. He needs to do more to reach out to Latinos.
Or, to put all that in another way, as Pataki proceeded to do, Romney "has the breadth of support that warrants our rallying around to him."
Come again?
Pataki has always been a bit of a doofus. But to try, as one might, to write off Pataki's inelegance on Fox yesterday as just more Patakiesque bumbling would be intellectually dissatisfying, in that it would be intrinsically dishonest, or simply mistaken. For Pataki was merely emulating another NY pol of superior political instincts, Robert Kennedy, who always urged the hanging of a lantern on one's problem -- in Romney's case, problems.
Still, George Pataki has a way of making even the smartly advisable look a trifle goofy.
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