I’ll be honest here. Ever since I became politically conscious at the ridiculously young age of seven, I’ve never liked Republicans. I didn’t like Jerry Ford or Poppy Bush or Bob Dole or Ronald Reagan. I didn’t like relatively liberal Republicans like Nancy Kassebaum, William Roth, Jim Jeffords, and John Chafee. I really didn’t like Arlen Specter or Christie Todd Whitman or Rudy Giuliani, who were all major figures in my area during my teenage years or young adulthood. Later on, I didn’t like local governors Tom Ridge and George Pataki, either, despite them both being pro-choice. So, I’m not the person to ask about “good” Republicans because I have no use for any of them.

Still, even the Harlem Globetrotters need the Washington Generals, and I recognize that there must be another team and someone must play for them. The list I compiled above represents a good sampling of the kind of Republicans who I could do business with. With the exception of Rudy Giuli9/11 who has been acting crazy of late, that list includes people who are at least familiar with reality.

It would be nice if someone like George Pataki had some influence on the Republican Party, so I could get excited about him running for president.

Aw, who am I kidding?

Pataki announced with a slickly produced video in which he almost does a Lou Reed kind of thing, speaking rapidly and a bit rhythmically over unusually obtrusive background music. In the video (which you can see below the fold), we learn a few important things about Pataki. He ties his own shoelaces with great authority, but prefers to be seen reading a newspaper while riding shotgun rather than driving a car. His big applause line at New Hampshire campaign events is “God bless you all, and lunch is on me.” And he plans to run as a man who led New York through the aftermath of 9/11, because that worked so incredibly well for Rudy Giuliani in 2008.

I learned long ago not to get my hopes up with this crowd. Pataki will be gone from this race before most people even realize that he was running.