New York Times
09-26-06
With Eye on Presidency, Pataki Is to Open Office in Iowa
By PATRICK HEALY
Gov. George E. Pataki plans to head back to Iowa on Friday to open an office for
his political action committee — not only to help candidates in November,
members of his staff said yesterday, but also to lay more groundwork for his own
possible presidential bid in 2008.
With plans in the works to open a second office soon in New Hampshire, Mr.
Pataki is planting his flag in two states that have significant influence in the
presidential nominating process. Iowa holds the first caucuses in the nation in
2008, on Jan. 14, and New Hampshire holds the first primary the following week.
The new office, in West Des Moines, will house about five paid staff members of
the 21st Century Freedom PAC and coordinate volunteers for 2006 campaigns,
according to Rob Cole, the executive director of the political action committee.
He said the office would remain open at least through the end of the year — well
past Election Day on Nov. 7.
Mr. Pataki, who is leaving office at the end of the year after three terms as New
York’s governor, is seriously considering a run for the White House, confident
that there will be a receptive audience for a Republican candidate who blends
socially moderate positions with a message of fiscal conservatism and tough
foreign policy, his aides say.
Yet if he were to run, the governor would face some formidable obstacles to the
Republican nomination. Mr. Pataki supports abortion rights and gay rights, and
has pursued a strong state role in environmental protection — positions at odds
with powerful factions in his own party.
At a meeting of leading Christian conservatives last week, the Rev. Jerry Falwell
insisted that the Republican nominee “can’t be a Giuliani and cannot be a
Pataki,” according to The Los Angeles Times. “It cannot be a person on the
wrong side of the social issues,” added Mr. Falwell, who also said Hillary
Rodham Clinton’s candidacy would arouse more evangelical opposition than
Lucifer’s.
Mr. Pataki ranked sixth in a poll of Iowa Republicans last month, well behind
former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who ranked first. Mr. Pataki had modest
favorable ratings in a poll whose results were published in The Des Moines
Register on Sunday; 48 percent of respondents also said they were unsure how
they felt about him, compared with 11 percent in Mr. Giuliani’s case.
Mr. Pataki’s action committee has contributed more than $50,000 to Iowa
candidates, and he has visited the state four times this year. And he has already
tapped several high-profile Iowans to advise him, including both a former Iowa
Senate majority leader and one of the state’s leading advocates of tax cuts.
Steffen Schmidt, a professor of political science at Iowa State University,
said, “It’s never too early to create a presidential base here, and it’s a smart
move by Pataki to try to raise his visibility and create some buzz, and send a
message to Iowans that he’s serious about this state.”