A Dartmouth alumnus, Democrat H. Carl McCall '58, is giving it "the old college try" as he seeks to unseat New York's incumbent Republican governor George E. Pataki in this November's election.
Andrew Cuomo's eleventh-hour withdrawal from the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination on Sept. 3 left McCall to battle Pataki. McCall is gaining ground against Pataki, who is running for his third term as governor in the election on Nov. 5.
McCall -- the New York state comptroller since 1993 -- is focusing his campaign on education, explained his spokesperson Marissa Shorenstein.
"Education is one of the cornerstones of McCall's campaign. Education was his salvation," she said. "His mother raised him with his five sisters, and she told him education was the key to opportunity. He listened to her."
The campaign advertising has recently taken a negative turn as Pataki has attacked McCall's record as president of New York City's Board of Education in a series of television ads.
Battling lower name-recognition among voters, McCall is attempting to fire back and simultaneously introduce himself with his own ads. A recent television spot begins with McCall saying, "I'm Carl McCall, the guy George Pataki's running all those false, negative ads against."
However the funding for these ads is limited. According to Shorenstein, McCall currently has a $2.5 million campaign budget, which is only one-tenth of Pataki's $23.3 million.
Shorenstein has remained optimistic about the campaign's progress. "McCall is raising money everyday. He has lots of national support including former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hilary Clinton, and former vice president Al Gore."
Although McCall does not have the war chest or the name recognition that Pataki enjoys as a two-term veteran governor, polls show that McCall is closing the gap with his Republican rival.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Sept. 25 showed McCall capturing 35 percent of the vote and Pataki 46 percent. Earlier polls, released before Cuomo exited the race, had shown Pataki with a 30 point lead over his nearest competitor.
However, in New York City, where McCall has spent most of his professional career, he holds a six percent lead over Pataki. Before serving as comptroller, McCall acted as the vice president of Citicorp/Citibank, president of the New York City Board of Education, a United Nations ambassador, Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a New York state senator for three terms. Now McCall is working on shoring up support in other areas of the state, where there are two million more Republicans than in the city, Shorenstein said.
In spite of the publicity surrounding Pataki and McCall, independent-party candidate Tom Golisano, who has spent over $30 million of his own money, is projected to take 14 percent of the statewide vote, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
McCall has come a long way from the poor suburbs of Boston. He was the first African-American elected to statewide office in New York State. In addition to studying at Dartmouth he also spent time at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and received a master of divinity from Andover-Newton Theological Seminary.
As the election draws near, McCall plans to "just keep doing what he's been doing," Shorenstein said. Asked what McCall plans to do if he doesn't win, Shorenstein assertively and confidently replied, "We plan on winning."
