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From CNN:

New York — New York Gov. David Paterson said Friday that he will not seek election to a full term in office.

“There are times in politics when you have to know not to strive for service but to step back,” he said.

He said it was not the “latest distraction but an accumulation” of obstacles that were behind his decision not to be a candidate in the November election.

On Thursday, Paterson denied at a news conference that he would resign and indicated that he would stay in the race.

Hours earlier, New York Deputy Secretary for Public Safety Denise E. O’Donnell abruptly resigned amid a burgeoning scandal over reports that a Paterson aide was involved in domestic violence incident with a woman and that state police later pressured her to keep quiet.

Paterson has suspended the aide, David Johnson, without pay. He also asked New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate the conduct of the state police in the matter.

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[2/26/2010 – 1:25 p.m.] – Paterson Abruptly Quits Election, Won’t Run In 2010

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. David Paterson, who repeatedly and defiantly said he would let voters decide if he should run the state, abruptly quit his nascent election bid Friday amid a stalled agenda, faltering popularity and criticism of his handling of a domestic abuse case involving one of his most trusted aides.

Democratic officials in Washington and a person briefed by Paterson in New York were informed of his plans early Friday. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because Paterson had not publicly disclosed his decision.

Paterson planned a 3 p.m. news conference at his New York City office, where he was expected to announce that he’s quitting the race.

Paterson, who had publicly prided himself on beating the odds, including overcoming blindness to rise through treacherous New York politics, formally announced his campaign last weekend but faced mounting calls to drop out of the race in the midst of controversy. A top aide is ensnared in a domestic-violence scandal, the governor was finding dwindling support in his own party and his campaign bank account paled in size to those of his rivals.

Paterson became governor in 2008, when former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal. Paterson’s decision paves the way for Andrew Cuomo to make an unimpeded run for the Democratic nomination.

“The governor isn’t feeling pushed out,” said a person who talked with the governor about his decision and who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because Paterson hadn’t yet announced why he was ending the campaign. “He certainly realizes it’s very difficult to do a campaign and govern, and the focus now is on governing and the best interests of the state.”

Paterson’s decision comes just 19 days short of his two-year anniversary as governor.

“He started out as a nice guy with the best wishes from everyone, and it just went downhill,” said Maurice Carroll of the Quinnipiac University poll. “As a personal story, it’s too bad because everyone who ever knew David Paterson liked him. As a governmental story, it’s partly him and it’s partly Albany. Albany is dysfunctional, and collectively they are awful.”

Paterson was the scion of a Harlem political power base that included his father, former state Secretary of State Basil Paterson; the late Percy Sutton, who was Manhattan borough president; Rep. Adam Clayton Powell; former Mayor David Dinkins; and embattled U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel.

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[2/26/2010 – 10:30 a.m.] – Paterson To Drop Out Of Governor’s Race

From NYTimes.com:

Gov. David A. Paterson, his administration caught up in a whirlwind of allegations about its intervention in a domestic violence episode involving a top aide, is set to announce that he is suspending his election campaign and will not run in November, according to a person told about the plans.

Mr. Paterson is expected to make the announcement Friday afternoon. It would end his campaign less than a week after it officially began, with an angry speech at Hofstra University on Long Island.

As he prepared for the announcement, some newspaper editorial writers were demanding something more than an end to his campaign: they were calling for his resignation. That only added to the increasing sense that it would be nearly impossible for him to run the state and the campaign with the abuse case in the background.

Still, as recently as Thursday evening, Mr. Paterson — who was elected lieutenant governor in November 2006 and became governor in March 2008 after Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal — had said he would stay in the race.

But he also said in a brief appearance on Thursday that he was consulting with other Democrats. And many had said publicly this week that Mr. Paterson’s chances had been damaged, perhaps irreparably, by the disclosures that the governor himself had stepped in on behalf of David W. Johnson, 37, a close confidant who rose from being a young intern to being Mr. Paterson’s driver and scheduler and, later, to a wider role in Mr. Paterson’s operation.

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[2/26/2010 – 9:12 a.m.] – N.Y. Gov. Refuses To Scrap Re-Election Bid Despite Scandals

From the Associated Press:

ALBANY, N.Y. — Democratic Gov. David Paterson, bedeviled by a domestic-violence scandal involving a top aide and lacking support in his own party, has found himself severely weakened as he tries to save the state from insolvency and run for a full term in the fall.

Even longtime friends say he may not be able to do both.

On Thursday, Paterson was hit by press reports that he and state police had contacted a woman involved in a Halloween confrontation with one of his advisers at her home. That prompted some key Democrats from Washington to New York to urge Paterson to drop his underdog bid for election.

Hours later, Paterson’s criminal justice czar resigned, saying that she was misled by Paterson’s appointed state police superintendent and that any contact by the governor and state police with the woman was “unacceptable regardless of their intent.”

Now, Paterson finds himself hamstrung from taking action on the state’s fiscal crisis that helped his cellar-dwelling polls before. He’s not even meeting with legislative leaders in his own party with whom he needs to negotiate a budget by April 1.

Worried about Paterson at the top of the ticket, low in the polls and underfunded, the legislative leaders have given him little support in recent tumultuous weeks.

His campaign, formally announced just days ago, is threatened, and his ability to balance the budget is weakened. In the face of it all, Paterson remained defiant but left the door open to change.

“I’m not suspending my campaign,” Paterson told reporters in Manhattan, “but I am talking to a number of elected officials around the state.”

Sen. Bill Perkins, a Democrat representing Paterson’s old Harlem district, is among top Democrats who want the governor to end his candidacy.

“The crisis we are suffering in this state and in the community is being distracted by these reports and very, very serious allegations,” Perkins said. “What we are learning is unacceptable, and the viability of his candidacy is obviously crippling.”

Perkins said he and other longtime friends of Paterson are urging he drop his campaign, especially in light of the resignation of Criminal Justice Services Commissioner Denise O’Donnell.

“The cabinet, so to speak, is falling apart,” Perkins said.

The New York Times reported Wednesday on court papers showing a phone call between state police and the woman who accused Paterson’s aide, who was her boyfriend at the time. Paterson’s office acknowledges he talked to the woman but says she placed the call, and a spokesman for the governor denied anyone tried to keep the woman from pursuing a domestic-violence case.

Paterson suspended the aide, David Johnson, without pay on Wednesday and hasn’t made Johnson available to comment or answer questions. He had no immediate comment about O’Donnell’s resignation.

The state police said in a news release that they won’t comment on any aspect of the case during an investigation by the office of Andrew Cuomo, the popular attorney general whom many would like to see run as the Democratic candidate for governor instead of Paterson.

The state police said Cuomo asked the agency not to open its own internal probe.

Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor, said Cuomo should tell New Yorkers if any of his staff gave the Times any information for the Johnson story.

Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat and longtime congressional member from Long Island, said it’s time for friends to be straight with Paterson.

“I think it’s become apparent that he should not seek election and should announce it soon,” Israel said. “And sometimes friends have to speak unpleasant truths.”

Johnson, 37, has worked for Paterson for more than a decade, beginning when Paterson was a state senator. Johnson began as an intern as part of Paterson’s effort to help youths with arrest records stemming from the crack epidemic in Harlem at the time.

The turmoil stems from a Halloween 2009 argument between Johnson and Sherruna Booker, 40, according to a police report. The woman told police Johnson was angry about her costume, choked her, tried to rip the clothing from her body and pushed her into a mirror.

Booker appeared in Family Court three times after she filed the police report Oct. 31. She dropped her case abruptly on Feb. 8, when she didn’t show up at court.

Booker’s lawyer didn’t comment despite repeated attempts to reach him by telephone.