Even though a couple of his aides were telling people last week that David Paterson is leaning toward Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, the governor's latest comments reveal that he's still pretty annoyed by her whole role in the equation. In fact, he's gone from obliquely joking about her inexperience to flat-out saying it is undermining her candidacy. He told the Buffalo News yesterday that "her lack of elected experience does not help her."

For a while now, our Cuddle Guv has seemed a piddle peeved about all the attention in the media over Kennedy, when there are actually "10 to 15 good candidates." He's joked about it, made New Year's resolutions about it, and this week, he's just whining about it. “The notion that I have to take Caroline is not coming from me,” he told the upstate paper, complaining that “gossip” has become a “greater force right now than my decision.” Oh, Pattycakes, that must be so frustrating! You should blog about it on MySpace.

Paterson says Kennedy is not a shoo-in for Senate [Buffalo News]