Chaos still reigns in New York politics as embattled Gov. David Patterson faces new outrage over his (legal?) appointment of a lieutenant governor. After Patterson named Richard Ravitch, the former head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority to the post Wednesday, state Republicans filed an immediate legal challenge claiming the governor doesn’t have the constitutional authority to make the appointment. Ravitch was quietly sworn-in Wednesday night, just a few hours before a state Supreme Court judge issued a temporary restraining order to prevent just that. Even state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo thinks Patterson’s move is unconstitutional. The fireworks are set to fly in court at a hearing scheduled for Friday morning. Politically, it’s hard to imagine Patterson’s move could drive his approval rating much lower—it currently hovers around 20 percent.Also on tap this morning—more Sarah Palin. She will grace the cover of Time this week in a piece that deconstructs her exit as Alaska governor and frames her 2012 prospects this way…
For Palin, the question might be, How thin a résumé and how unconventional a background will voters embrace? Obama — a first-term Senator with roots in Hawaii, Kenya and Indonesia — moved the bar quite a distance. But would the same country that picked the lofty, cerebral liberal turn around four years later and embrace an earthy, instinctive conservative? After all, President Obama will also be a lot more experienced in 2012.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick thinks Palin’s legacy will be a simple one…
It’s easy to look at the soon-to-be-former governor of Alaska as an iconic feminist, a path-breaking working mother, or noble rabble-rousing populist. But when the dust settles, the lesson may be that she was simply a woman who made no sense.
And Mort Kondracke worries that despite her bizarre exit from Alaska politics, Palin might still wind up the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. Karl Rove’s latest WSJ editorial offering hits President Obama on what he calls the administration’s “unrealistic” promises on most everything from the economy to healthcare. And Nancy Scola over at TechPresident digs into a study from American University’s center for social media on the Twitter Vote Report—the project that encouraged voters to tweet reports from the polls on Election Day 2008. Shane D’Aprile is senior editor at Politics magazine. sdaprile@politicsmagazine.com