According to the Times' City Room blog, even though David Paterson is under fire to solve the state's budgetary woes, there's a group of people out there still aggressively kissing his butt: the people who want to replace future secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The list of prominent Democratic names said to be under consideration for her Senate seat is ever-changing: Representative Nita Lowey said recently she doesn't want the gig, for example, but Representative Carolyn Maloney said she did. But it's not only high-profile politicians lining up for the job — it's also some weirdos. Take the person who loitered around on a university campus where Paterson was supposed to speak, waiting to accost him on the way in. "I thought they were going in the event," Paterson told the Times, avoiding specific pronouns. "I said let's go in. And they said, 'Oh no, I'm not going in the event.' They came to stand there to make their case to me." Ludicrous, no? Everybody knows that you get the guy to pick you by playing hard to get and then making as many excuses as possible to touch him when you are in the same room. Duh.

Luckily, Paterson knows all of this insane courtship is fleeting. In the end, he says, "There'll be probably one ingrate and 20 enemies … that's what happens in this kind of process."

Paterson Soaks Up the Attention, for Now [City Room/NYT]