At a time when Gov. David A. Paterson can ill afford more negative attention, the state’s most powerful health care interests are mounting a multimillion-dollar media campaign that excoriates the governor and his plans to cut funding for hospitals and other health care facilities.
In television commercials that will begin broadcasting statewide on Monday, nurses and patients take a personal swipe at the governor, imploring, “Why are you doing this?” At one point, a nurse says, “I can’t believe Governor Paterson is the one making this proposal.” Then a man, blind and in a wheelchair, asks the governor, who is legally blind, “Why are you doing this to me?”
The attacks on Mr. Paterson come as Republicans are ratcheting up their own objections to the governor’s budget proposal, taking advantage of what they consider an opening to criticize a governor weakened by the fallout over the way he selected a new United States senator.
In a further sign of trouble for the governor, members of his own party have become increasingly unhappy with him in the last week. Some Democrats have worried publicly that Mr. Paterson is not moving quickly and aggressively enough to counter criticism about his handling of the appointment of Kirsten E. Gillibrand to the Senate.
Mr. Paterson, who rearranged his schedule last week after canceling a trip to Davos, Switzerland, for an economic forum, spent much of the weekend traveling to previously unscheduled town meetings across upstate New York. He met with the public at community colleges in Johnstown on Friday and in Auburn on Saturday, where he defended his plans to close the $15 billion state budget deficit.
“All of us are having to make cuts,” Mr. Paterson said to reporters after his meeting in Johnstown. “This is really a very hard thing to perform, and it’s also a very hard thing to experience.”
While legislative leaders and public employees’ unions have expressed concern over the cuts Mr. Paterson has proposed, no one has criticized the governor as harshly or as loudly as the health care interests do in their new campaign. The governor is calling for $3.5 billion less in funding increases for health care spending over the next 14 months.
The advertising blitz, which is being paid for by the 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East and the Greater New York Hospital Association, will feature television commercials in all of the state’s major media markets including New York, Syracuse and Buffalo and in smaller markets like Utica, Watertown and Binghamton. The television spots will accompany radio commercials, newspaper advertisements, direct mail and phone banks that the campaign’s organizers hope will reach up to two million voters. The television and radio components alone, with their statewide reach, will cost at least $1 million per week.
“From our point of view, we’re between a rock and a hard place,” said Kenneth E. Raske, president of the hospital association. “We have no place to go but to the court of public opinion and make everyone aware of what is going on.”
A spokeswoman for the governor, Risa B. Heller, said that the governor’s budget calls for a reduction in the rate of health care spending growth not a reduction in spending. And she questioned whether a media campaign was the most appropriate way for the groups to air their concerns. “The governor hopes that 1199 and G.N.Y.H.A. recognize that a television ad never helped solve a crisis and asks that they join him in his responsible approach to this year’s budget,” she said.
The advertising campaign, which organizers said would last for at least a month, is similar to efforts undertaken by the union and the hospital association in the past. Most recently, when Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed cutting health care funding as part of his budget in 2007, the health care groups took aim at him with commercials that questioned the wisdom of his budget cuts. Mr. Spitzer countered with his own ads that featured a nursery filled with crying infants and a narrator saying that “special interests” were merely complaining and standing in the way of budget reform.
The health care groups’ campaign this year puts the Paterson administration on the defensive at a time when the governor is trying to rebound from attacks on his credibility. In addition to facing criticism about why he allowed the Senate appointment process to drag on for nearly two months and turn into a circuslike atmosphere of speculation, he has also faced questions about his role in disparaging information given to the news media about Caroline Kennedy.
Ms. Kennedy had been considered a leading candidate for the Senate seat, but after she unexpectedly withdrew from consideration, associates of Mr. Paterson’s were quoted anonymously by numerous media outlets as saying that problems involving her taxes, her marriage and a household employee were behind her withdrawal.
Mr. Paterson has disavowed those leaks and denied that he authorized them. But he has offered varying explanations about whether he would pursue action against the person or people responsible for them.
Republicans said they see an opportunity to strike and will use it to their advantage.
“It gives Republicans an opening,” said Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island who is expected to campaign for Ms. Gillibrand’s Senate seat in next year’s election. “Everything that could have gone wrong for them over the last six weeks went wrong. They came across as the gang who couldn’t shoot straight, and this could be our opportunity.”
Republicans in Albany hope that criticizing the governor’s proposals to shore up the economy will diminish his standing on an issue that many believed was his strongest political advantage.
“He’s talking about 100 new taxes, but he hasn’t talked about creating any new jobs,” said Dean G. Skelos, the Republican minority leader in the State Senate. “Right now people in Albany believe that the Democrats cannot function and govern, and they’re looking to us.”
Some Democrats believe Mr. Paterson needs to do more to surmount the damage that has been done to his reputation and by proxy, to their party. “The time to correct the situation is right now,” said Sam Hoyt, a Democratic assemblyman who represents Buffalo. “But people are starting to get impatient.”
Mr. Hoyt added, “If I were in his shoes, given the very real bumps in the road that he’s endured, I would spend some time reaching out to his colleagues in the Legislature and try to restore the confidence of his allies in government.”
But some Democrats complained that Mr. Paterson has only become more aloof from Albany lawmakers.
“We’re not having meetings,” said one Democratic lawmaker, who did not want to be identified so he could speak more candidly about Mr. Paterson’s relationship with the Legislature. “They should be calling us and saying, ‘What are we going to do now? Let’s work through the issues.’ ”
With Democrats now in control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the Legislature for the first time since the Depression, some said they fear that voters will place the fault squarely on Democrats if the budget and other major issues are not resolved quickly.
“There’s no one else to blame,” said Rory I. Lancman, a Democratic assemblyman from Queens. “And there’s not going to be anyone else who we can point a finger to if we don’t succeed in delivering.”