Certainly Mr. Paterson, who is seen in Albany as an accidental governor, is much different from his fiery - and ultimately self-immolating - predecessor, Eliot Spitzer. In his first week, he introduced himself to New York by confessing to several extramarital affairs and then saying that he had used cocaine in his 20s.
So it was on the serious matters of the state budget, being finished amid a growing fiscal crisis, that the governor's makeshift staff hoped to establish his bona fides. Assistants suggested that Mr. Paterson, with more than two decades of legislative experience, would navigate the process more deftly than Mr. Spitzer, who seemed to spend all of his brief tenure picking fights with lawmakers in both parties.
But Mr. Paterson had to contend with two seasoned political leaders - Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a fellow Democrat, and Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate's Republican leader - as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose congestion pricing plan was coming to a head at the same time as the budget.
He succeeded in some areas, including beating back an effort by Mr. Silver to raise taxes on residents earning $1 million or more a year.
But he did not leave much of an imprint on the process, ultimately seeming little more than a bystander. First, Mr. Paterson's assistants pushed to conclude a budget by the March 31 deadline, a tall order for a governor who took office on March 17. That did not work. Then they tried to help the mayor pass his congestion pricing plan. That also failed.
In some ways, it was almost as if he were reprising his former role as leader of the powerless Democratic minority in the State Senate - more critic than participant.
Also, I think we have to keep in mind that this really wasn't all of Paterson's Executive Budget. Remember that Spitzer crafted his own Executive Budget. Paterson didn't have the time or the luxury to do so. So I think that takes away his ability to show that his budget accomplished something - whatever that may be.
