I know that I wasn’t the only one put to sleep by a debate among the seven men running for Governor.

It seemed that four of them spent so much time kissing George Pataki’s butt, they never got to answer the questions posed to them by the reporters. 

To me it was, without a doubt, a no-win situation for Carl McCall.  

It is no wonder that he felt the only kind of debate that would benefit the people of the State would involve he and Pataki alone.

For whatever reason, this race is now very close. 

A recent Blum and Weprin poll put the Governor ahead by only eight percentage points.

With a three percent margin of error, it’s a close race.

You can also tell it’s close by the change in the tone of the Pataki campaign ads – they have taken a negative turn. 

The first sign of how close things were came when the New York Post, the public relations journal for the Republican National party, released excerpts of letters that McCall wrote to companies on behalf of relatives looking for work. 

I had to think long and hard about what McCall was accused of doing.  

In the end, though, I could not see what was different between what McCall is accused of and the patronage jobs given out by Pataki over the last eight years.

Do you think for one moment that a call will not be made to someone when Jenna Bush is ready to get a job?

Since government was conceptualized and created by the Babylonians 4,000-years -ago, officials have petitioned other bureaucrats on behalf of people they were related to or knew. 

The reason the President of the United States was allowed to become an owning partner of a Major League Baseball team was because someone called someone.

McCall did apologize for giving the impression that he had somehow misused his government position.

But let’s not kid ourselves about the basic content of what happened. 

Carl McCall floated the résumé of his wife and daughter to people who he thought would be receptive to their credentials. 

This is done every minute of everyday of every year. 

The only real lesson in this is to simply pick up the phone and leave nothing for people to misconstrue.

I want to know who is going to bring jobs into the City, who has the best plan for restoring the infrastructure of the city’s economy, and who is going to give the City the money it deserves for the education of our kids after years of under-funding. 

All the other issues, like the nonsensical ones raised in that recent farce of a debate, I could care less about.

Nevertheless you can expect more issues like “Lettergate” as the end of this lackluster race gets near. 

If the numbers get closer between Carl and Governor Pataki, then it could get exciting.

I expect that in these last three weeks — you’ll see some real mud fly.  

What would a New York Election be without a little dirt?