Pataki announces long-shot GOP bid
EXETER, N.H. — It had the outlines of a significant event: A three-term governor of New York, who forced Mario M. Cuomo from office and led his state through the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, announced Thursday that he was running for president.
But as the former governor, George E. Pataki, prepared in recent weeks to announce his candidacy, he conceded to friends and allies that he was an extreme long shot for the Republican nomination.
Pataki declared his candidacy Thursday in an address to supporters in New Hampshire. The former governor vowed to enact far-ranging changes in Washington, pointing to his record of attacking government spending.
“After 12 years of my conservative policies, we replaced dependency with opportunity, resignation with hope, mere existence with dreams, a welfare check with a paycheck,” Pataki said, adding, “I know we can do the same thing for the United States.”
Pataki laid out a vision that veered from the politically mundane (cutting taxes on manufacturers) to the soaring (curing cancer and Alzheimer’s in the next decade). He called for aggressive military action against the Islamic State, including the possible deployment of U.S. troops.
Pataki, who left office in 2006, is an unlikely match for the Republican Party of 2016. He supports abortion rights and pushed as governor for anti-discrimination rules protecting gays. He invokes Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican anti-corporate crusader, as a political hero.