Everyone likes a nice political race, but it's slowly beginning to dawn on us here in New York State that we may be out of luck this year, at least as far as the Governor's race goes.
A couple of days ago millionaire Republican ringer Thomas Golisano decided not to pour another $70 million of his hard earned dollars down the drain (he switched from the Independence Party to the Republicans last year with just that idea in mind).
Now the putative favorite, William Weld, seems intent on sinking his own chances:
Campaign aides have significantly altered two newspaper articles on his Web site about his bid for governor, removing all negative phrases about him, like "mini-slump" and "dogged by an investigation," and passages about his political problems.
The
New York Times is reporting that two articles were placed on the web site under the original authors' names and with no indiciation that they had been bowdlerized. After the paper sought information from the Weld campaign, the words "Excerpted Version" appeared above the articles.
You can read the Republicanized versions of the articles (one from the New York Times and one from The Poughkeepsie Journal on the Weld web site.
How heavily where they edited?
In its revision of the Times article, the Weld campaign lopped off the first three paragraphs, which reviewed Mr. Weld's problems. The Weld version carried the reporter's byline but dropped the story headline, "Campaign May Be Down, But Weld Certainly Isn't," and began with a first paragraph (originally the fourth) about Mr. Weld being known in Massachusetts as "a man who never had a bad day."
One wonders -- is there still time for Jeannine Pirro to switch from the Attorney General's race to the Gubernatorial? If so, she'd be the first candidate to complete the hattrick -- failing to be elected Senator, Attorney General, and Governor in the same year!