ALBANY — Former Gov. George Pataki said Monday he is “very seriously” considering a run for President, adding, “I have no doubt in my mind that I have the ability to run this country well.”
Pataki told the Daily News he believes the nation needs leaders with exactly the kind of executive experience that he has.
“When you look at the last six years, we have someone who may speak well but has never run anything,” Pataki said in a swipe at President Obama.
His record of cutting taxes and shrinking government, he said, are what’s needed at the federal level.
“I ran a big complex state government under very difficult circumstances, in my opinion, very well,” he said.
Pataki, 69, will decide sometime next year whether to run, he said.
“What I have been doing is going to states and meeting with ordinary citizens, people who care and seeing what their opinion is,” the former three-term governor said.
“That’s what I have always tried to do and the reaction I’ve been getting is very positive.”
Although political experts have scoffed at the idea of a Pataki 2016 campaign, suggesting that Pataki is simply trying to build up his legal and consulting business by elevating his profile, people close to the former governor insist a candidacy is a real possibility.
Recognizing this could be his last hurrah in politics, Pataki seems to more serious now than during his past flirtations with a national candidacy. He already has made a handful of trips to key primary states New Hampshire and South Carolina.
State GOP Chairman Ed Cox said Pataki would be a “very good” candidate but he stopped short of promising the backing of New York Republicans.
“We have a state committee that would do that if they were going to do it,” Cox said. Still, “He’s a three term Republican governor of New York State, that says a lot,” Cox said.
Pataki spoke to The News after addressing a meeting of state Republican leaders that was called to discuss what the party must do to get its mojo back in New York. The GOP hasn’t won a statewide race since Pataki captured a third term in 2002.
Pataki and his former aide John Cahill, who lost his race for state attorney general this year, both said the GOP needs to make better inroads with minority communities in New York City to be successful.
“When you make a concerted effort and tell people that the ideas and principles you have are important to improving everyone’s life, than you can expand and broaden the base of the party,” Pataki said.
