By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

It was many months ago that I gave up on the Governor’s race. Carl McCall was being challenged by Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Primary and neither were turning on the people. Certainly, neither was giving any reason to throw out a popular incumbent who had done a credible job by almost everyone’s standards. And when Andy and Carl were banging heads, George was gaining.

Then Cuomo made a campaign gaffe and attacked the Gov’s performance during the 9-11 aftermath. Andy’s death spiral began. Above and beyond that, Cuomo never really gave the people and party a reason to abandon McCall, who though uncharismatic and lacking in energy and verve, had earned the position as party standard bearer and offered the State a chance to write history by electing an African American.

Perhaps Pataki wasn’t a superstar, and perhaps he wasn’t as giving to New York City education as many of us would have liked, but he was moderate, likeable and embraced most of the principles that mattered to Democrats. He was in the mold of the moderate Republicans that have managed to historically win New York in spite of a huge enrollment edge by the Democrats. Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javitz, perhaps Al D’Amato and Rudy Giuliani and now Mike Bloomberg have all continually faced party enrollment that said the Republican couldn’t win.

Wrong! The people of New York State do not vote party; they vote people, and perhaps issues. And people everywhere reelect the incumbent unless given a strong reason not to.

In neighboring New Jersey, Bob Torrecelli might have given them a reason. But George Pataki hasn’t.

Sometimes, too many years is too much and voters tire of a face or style. Ed Koch, Mario Cuomo and Al D’Amato were all once super popular incumbents who lost reelection battles. But each of them went down after twelve years in office and not eight. George Pataki only has eight. And New Yorkers just haven’t unseated guys with eight looking for twelve.

So when Greg Meeks first told me and then, last week, Gary Ackerman insisted that Carl McCall was clearly going to be the winner, I wondered what the folks in Congress were doing. Their’s certainly isn’t conventional wisdom.

The McCall team first cites party enrollment, but that didn’t seem to help Mario Cuomo hold his seat against George Pataki or Mark Green when he lost to Mike Bloomberg.

Then there is the mantra of the large black turnout. McCall backers insist that the chance to elect the State’s first African American Governor will produce the largest black turnout in New York history. Jesse Jackson’s candidacy did once surprise pundits and brought blacks to the polls in record numbers. Al Sharpton has also been able to increase black voter turnout. Yes, we believe that New York State will probably see the largest turnout of African American voters in its history. However, with the huge money advantage George Pataki has, we also believe that he will be able to bring his voters to the polls. We buy the team McCall concept of a large turnout. We anticipate a large turnout everywhere, not just in the black community. Granted, the black turnout will likely be disproportionately larger than other voter blocks. But will it be large enough?

Finally, we come to the question of how can number two overtake number one. If you ask the campaign consultants, they’ll whisper, negative campaigning – very softly. But recent political history has shown, to beat a popular incumbent, you have to go negative.

There are several problems with McCall going negative on Pataki. Negative campaigning has been relegated by the voters to a low-class, demeaning tactic. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t work; it just is a lot harder to pull off and fraught with the danger of backfire. Ask Andy Cuomo — we referred to his negative shot at Pataki as the beginning of the end for him. Furthermore, you really have to have the goods and be pure yourself, to attempt to pull off an effective negative campaign. We again cite New Jersey where an unknown businessman capitalized on the personal corruption of a once popular Senator. However, we know of no such Achilles heal for the Guv. Additionally, negative campaigning in the post 9-11 era seems to have more pitfalls than ever before.

In this writer’s judgment, if the Guv has one glaring weak spot, it is his State budget built on a “house of cards.” However, as we look at Pataki’s performance over the last eight years, we note that the man elected to watch the budget for the people was Carl McCall and for seven of those eight years, we didn’t hear him yelling loudly that New York State was facing a future budgetary nightmare. New York now faces its worst fiscal situation in recent modern history, and neither George Pataki nor Carl McCall stepped up to the plate with a plan nor accepted responsibility.

So, it looks really bleak for Carl McCall. He has failed to differentiate himself from George Pataki. Pataki is popular and seems to have made no big mistakes. Democrats (including always popular Ed Koch, labor leader Dennis Rivera, and Queens Assemblymen Mike Cohen and Tony Seminario) are flocking to him. Gosh, he also got the guru of rappers, Queens’ LL Cool J. How can George lose?

There is only one unknown in the equation that says voters will reward George Pataki for being a popular incumbent. That unknown is the Independence Party candidacy of Tom Golisano. With a personal fortune and the intention of “going negative” on Pataki, Golisano might be able to do what Carl McCall can’t — convince the Pataki voter to stay home or change lines. Now, the Ross Perot model suggests that both Republicans and Democrats in roughly equal numbers will seek a third party alternative. However, polls and pundits don’t have the data or insight into this one.

George Pataki is, today, the clear winner and the only wild card in the game is whether Tom Golisano and his multi-millions can hurt Pataki enough to give Carl McCall a chance.

Stay tuned.

Guest Columnist: Henry Stern
Drifting From Erie, Toward Ontario

Autumn is upon us — a time of fresh starts, the return from summer vacations, the beginning of the academic year, the early Jewish New Year, and the welcome onset of decent weather after a hot, muggy summer.

City government has been relatively quiescent as well, except for the turnover at the Board of Education, a phrase that will linger even though the board is defunct.  The new chancellor is lodged at the old Tweed courthouse, a symbol of municipal waste and corruption.

Henry Stern

The underlying problem remains:  we are passengers on a ship heading toward Niagara Falls.  Something drastic may happen when we reach them, but nothing much will be said about it until after the Nov. 5 election.

One gets the sense of a so-far-slowly rising tide of lawlessness in the City.  The word is out that the Giuliani days are over, and there is a new tolerance of all kinds of public deviancy and misbehavior. 

This is not the fault of Mayor Bloomberg, who deplores crime as much as you and I.  He does not blame society, excuse the criminal, and look for “root causes,” as a few of his predecessors did to a greater or lesser extent.  But more than attitude is needed. 

The Mayor must show, by his daily words and actions, that public safety is his first priority, that he is involved with the police, that public misbehavior will not be tolerated and that Mayor Giuliani’s war on crime will continue with renewed intensity.  Good guys often have to be tough in fighting bad guys if they want to win and keep the peace  (See Gary Cooper in “High Noon”).

The City Council continues to set new lows in irrelevance.  The decent and talented Speaker Gifford Miller has done all he can to prevent some of his charges from making fools of themselves. Much of the legislation introduced is narrow and sectarian, not relevant to quality of life or the efficiency and productivity of government. 

 As the late Daniel Wolf, co-founder (in 1955) of the Village Voice, wrote many years ago:  “This City can be an extraordinary place to live, but only if people of imagination, courage and an urban outlook are put in positions of power.”

 One can never give up on New York: its government has improved over the years; there are far fewer outright thieves in office; more appointments are being made on the basis of merit.  We have a mayor who is honest, dedicated and competent, who knows as much as anyone else who became involved with City government as a second career. 

Reformers have always looked for a white knight to be mayor; someone outside politics and its inevitable compromises, a new broom, a fresh and vital approach to local government.  We should be grateful to have been prodded – albeit with the help of seventy-three million dollars – to have reached this plateau.  But the nature of reform involves constant complaint, so we say truthfully that there is still enormous room for improvement in both the formulation of public policy and the delivery of public services.

That is why I write these articles, and why I appreciate your reading them, and hopefully passing them on to others.  Together we can find ways to improve City government.

But do think quickly, since the current is gradually becoming swifter.  Before we reach Grand Island and Horseshoe Falls, let us have some idea of what our City is going to do about its social and fiscal problems.

-- Henry Stern was NYC Parks Commissioner for fifteen years and a Councilmember for nine. He is founder and director of NYCivic, a good government group. He can be reached at: starquest.nycivic.org.

Freedom For ‘Falling?’

My friend, Marcia Moxam Comrie, PRESS of Southeast Queens contributing editor, writes in reaction to this column’s and this paper’s position of advocacy critical of the removal of JCAL’s insensitive art exhibit “Falling,” one artist’s 9-11 memorial.

“Insensitive or not, art is how we used to record the events of history before the advent of the history book and the camera. I for one, am glad that today’s artists are showing some courage in depicting what is probably the worst scene out of the World Trade Center attack. Yes, it is a painful reminder, but I would not want to live in a world where artists can’t depict what they’ve seen and writers can’t write what they’ve witnessed or heard.

“We’ve become soooo politically correct that we forget that this was a tragic event of historical proportions, and painful though it may be, we need people to record it in the medium of their talent or inspiration — for posterity.

Future generations must see this!

“I am glad that someone recorded the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt on ‘The Palate of Narmer.’ It depicts the triumphant King Narmer standing over the decapitated bodies of “the enemies,” each body with its severed head between its legs awaiting burial.

Not a pretty sight, but as a lover of history, I am thankful that someone recorded it for me to know about some 5,000 years later.

You cannot stifle creativity and you should never stifle history.”