It’s easy to feel for New York Governor David Paterson. He bumbles his way through selecting a replacement for former Senator Hillary Clinton (it wasn’t a good sign when the beleaguered governor of Illinois handled his pick a senator game with a whole lot more ease). After settling on Kirsten E. Gillibrand, some in Paterson’s camp start with anonymous comments dogging out Caroline Kennedy, the initial front runner for the gig until she dropped out. I’ll put this out there: anyone who tells a reporter dirt, with no name attached,  is a  coward.

So the Paterson name is a little bit sullied and he doesn’t need anything else added to his plate. Now comes a tale about  Michelle Paige Paterson, the governor’s significant other, sending a mass emails to people asking them to support her man with a letter or two. No problem there; however, she sent the plea from her work email. A problem.

“She knows that she needs to keep her work as first lady and her work for the company separate, and we are reinforcing that,”  said EmblemHealth spokeswoman Ilene Margolin;  EmblemHealth is Mrs. Paterson’s employer.

I’ll leave the context of her request alone (I do love her swipe at the “new media”), but the larger problem is who is running the public relations department in the governor’s household? What Paterson partisan thought it would be helpful to start some low ball whispering campaign against Kennedy? And why hasn’t the governor fired the folk involved? The sloppiness of finally getting to Gillibrand  is easy to forgive (with a few drinks), but there is no message discipline from the governor’s camp. Surprising seeing how he is no political hick. He comes from a political family and used to be the minority leader in the state Senate. This pedigree  is not helping him and if Paterson keeps up with the missed cues (and crazy budget troubles!) it will be real easy for someone to take him down in the next election.