ALBANY, Feb. 2 - State Republicans said on Wednesday that their efforts to raise money could be hampered by news that their state party has been paying $50,000 a year for a personal assistant for the state's first lady, Libby Pataki.
The state party said this week that it had been paying Michelle R. Stubbs since 1999 to serve as a personal assistant to Mrs. Pataki. Party officials and officials in the administration of Gov. George E. Pataki said that Ms. Stubbs did administrative work to help Mrs. Pataki with her political appearances, not personal work for the Pataki family. But a grocer near the Patakis' home told The Associated Press that Ms. Stubbs shopped for the Pataki family's food.
"It makes my job harder," said Anthony G. Scannapieco, the chairman of the Republican committee in Putnam County, where the Patakis live. "
We're not raising money for this kind of thing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/nyregion/03pataki.html?oref=login- - -
It also doesn't help that Pataki's focused also of
his fundraising efforts on national campaigns and his own PAC (whose sole purpose appear to be to boost his own profile) in order to build a warchest for the presidential campaigns his lackeys are telling him he's got a prayer of winning.