would experience a long honeymoon period as governor, which could help him make progressive changes, Harris warns that if Paterson wants to get elected next term, he “has to be reform-oriented because of New Yorkers’ negative views of Albany.”
With Paterson replacing Spitzer, Joseph L. Bruno, New York State Senate’s majority leader, would become lieutenant governor. A governorship would place Paterson in the ranks of current Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and the former governor of Virginia, Douglas Wilder, as the nation’s only African American governors since Reconstruction.