When Thos. Golisano stopped by the editorial rooms of The New York Sun yesterday, we asked him what impact in a substantive way he thought his run was having on Governor Pataki’s campaign. At least part of the rationale behind Mr. Golisano’s run, after all, has seemed to be that even if the idea of a self-financed candidate winning was an extremely long shot, he could at the least make sure that the governor didn’t enjoy a cake-walk with the conservatives he has abandoned. In other words, a challenge from the right might force Mr. Pataki to shore up his base on the right. Such, however, has not been the case. Instead, it would seem that Mr. Golisano’s expensive efforts in this campaign, mostly concentrated on television advertisements, have caused Mr. Pataki to tack to the left.

When asked about this, Mr. Golisano replied, “at least someone is out there saying these things.” He then listed specifically the issues of lowering taxes and reforming the campaign finance system. “You don’t hear Pataki or McCall” talking about these issues, he asserted. We found ourselves agreeing that third parties can be useful in this way, since they often have less political capital to lose by bringing to the fore issues embarrassing to both parties. In New York this year, however, no such effect has taken hold. Rather, with much of his right-wing base angry and deserting him for Mr. Golisano, Mr. Pataki has decided that his hope lies in raiding the base of his Democratic rival, H. Carl McCall.

Perhaps a stronger Democrat could have warded off this assault, but Mr. McCall has watched union after union throw its support behind the Republican candidate. Dennis Rivera’s Service Employees International Union 1199 endorsed Mr. Pataki early, after the governor secured a $1.8 billion payoff in the form of raises for state health care workers. The Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the carpenters union, and even the United Federation of Teachers have also lined up behind the GOP’s candidate. These unions have pocketed such goodies as a law barring companies that receive state money from using those funds to fight union organizing and a $200 million loan from the state to New York City to raise teachers’ pay.

While Mr. Pataki had drifted from his conservative roots by 1998, this year’s drive to the left is different by an order of magnitude. With such a weak challenge from the Democrats, the optimistic school of thought is that Mr. Pataki’s tactics are little but a reaction to Mr. Golisano. What is perhaps most worrying about this is that Mr. Pataki is implicitly communicating with his tactics that he does not believe there is a right-center coalition to be had in New York. As for Mr. Golisano, he told us, “I didn’t do this so I could run for governor every four years … I want other people to get involved.” But Mr. Golisano’s operation is not without its own cynicism. So far, the others involved have included an assortment of rogues, chief among them Lenora Fulani. Mr. Golisano reacts to this fact by saying that people come and go. He stresses that a lot can happen between now and election day. But it will take some doing to untangle the logic of a third party attack from the right in this campaign.