By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Former Gov. David Paterson was so far ahead of his time that red flags he raised over the impending budget crisis were ignored, he said during a radio guest-hosting stint Monday.
Asked if he felt vindicated, Paterson said he did.
"Sometimes you’re ahead of your time. And sometimes you’re out of your time," Paterson said, admitting that he was never able to corral public support or make a convincing case to lawmakers for a serious cutback plan.
"I think in some regards I was viewed as a traitor. In others I was viewed as an alarmist," he said. In others, he said, it was thought that he did not know what was going on.
But Paterson had nothing but praise for his successor, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, saying that Cuomo's budget message has been on-track from the very beginning of his campaign.
"He’s holding everyone’s feet to the fire," Paterson said. "He has utilized the bully pulpit of being governor ... as well as [anyone] we’ve seen in the past four or five decades."
"He’s raised the bar" for what goes on in the legislature, Paterson said.
A new Siena poll out Monday (PDF) shows Cuomo's ratings at an all-time high, with 77 percent of those polled saying they viewed the Governor favorably, including nearly two-thirds of Republicans. Another 72 percent said they supported Cuomo's proposed budget plan, despite deep cuts across the board.
Paterson also used his time on air to criticize his former colleagues on both sides of the aisle for playing partisan games.
"What I could never really say while I was in government is there’s too much a sense of a competition, like a sporting event, rather than recognizing our role as public servants and our responsibility to people," he said.
During the four-hour broadcast in WOR's John Gambling's seat, Paterson also interviewed State Sen. Michael Gianaris and Long Island Congressman Peter King, who reaffirmed his desire to hold hearings on the "radicalization" of Muslims and criticized Republicans' proposed cuts to transportation funding.
Paterson has long talked about his love of radio, and told one caller that he would like to host a show giving listeners' an inside view of the budget process.
The former governor has also already reportedly accepted a position teaching at NYU.
He will return for an encore on WOR on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m.
