In yet another bit of bizarrerie coming from the NY Governor's office, Paterson now appears to be denying the story that President Obama requested that he not run for governor next year. In an interview with NY1 Noticias Paterson said, "I never got an authorized invitation from the White House not to run for governor. There was a New York Times article about Congressman Meeks telling me to get out of the race. It never happened. And Congressman Meeks confirmed it on the record."
This is a strange time for this version of the story to come out, after it had dominated Albany gossip for the entire week. Hell, even Paterson's wife thought that the Commander-in-Chief wanted him to step aside! Paterson had initially refused to discuss "confidential" conversations, then blamed it on Obama, saying that he's had a rough year in the presidency, then blamed it on people connected to Andrew Cuomo. Maybe he's trying to do something nice for the president now, after polls showed that most New Yorkers wished the White House had not intervened.
As for the conversation with Meeks, we're not sure the Queens congressman denied the story. He had seemingly confirmed that he told Paterson to forget about running when he told the press, "All I was doing was telling a friend what the issues are that are out there."
