Anyone who remains heartened by the high-toned reform proposals issued by both the Senate and the Assembly in recent weeks should learn a lesson from Assemblyman Richard Brodsky.

In the hours after Governor Pataki delivered his annual budget address to a packed auditorium in Albany last week, Democratic lawmakers were careful not to appear intransigent. The speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, the governor’s chief antagonist, prefaced his response to the spending plan with a lengthy qualification about the need for cooperation at a time of increased public scrutiny over the budgetary process.

Not Mr. Brodsky.

One day after Mr. Pataki’s speech, the Westchester Democrat convened a raucous press conference that was remarkable only for its lack of restraint. A veteran lawmaker with overt political ambitions of his own, Mr. Brodsky, likened the governor to “Charles I,” the 17th-century English monarch whose disdain for the commoners cost him his head.

Mr. Brodsky was referring to what he characterizes as the governor’s penchant for inserting policy into the executive budget proposals rather than introducing bills separately through ordinary legislative channels. Mr. Brodsky calls this approach the “my way or the highway” form of governance.

And he expects it to end badly for the governor. “As you remember,” Mr. Brodsky said, meaningfully to a group of reporters, “Charles I paid a serious price for his intransigence.” If the aroma of reform is wafting through the halls of the Capitol, as some still believe, Mr. Brodsky, at least, has evidently failed to pick up its scent.

Perhaps this is why Mr. Pataki is believed by some to be looking for an early exit strategy.

As Mr. Brodsky was waxing historical about the governor’s political fate, rumors began to circulate downstate that Mr. Pataki’s name is being floated to replace America’s outgoing ambassador to the United Nations, Senator Danforth. Aides to the governor would not openly confirm those rumors last week, but at least one had confirmed the rumor privately to veteran columnist Robert Novak, who went to print with it on Sunday.

The logic of the move eludes a number of observers here, though it would certainly lighten Democratic hearts just in time for the cold season in Albany. It would not, however, earn the governor any more allies in the Republican conferences that have already tired of his inconsistent message on taxes and other Republican causes.

The reason: many Republicans here believe the governor’s zealous fundraising for President Bush was done at the expense of cultivating attractive Republican successors in New York. This point was underscored by the disastrous Senate race of Assemblyman Howard Mills, who recently lost to Senator Schumer by a record percentage of the vote.

But it would become even more apparent if Mr. Pataki were to abruptly leave office for Turtle Bay. In that case, New Yorkers would wake up to find themselves governed by Mary Donohue, a woman who makes the wooden Mr. Pataki appear scintillating by comparison. Said one top aide to an Assembly Democrat: “The Republicans are saying the governor has done nothing to groom a replacement. They are scared at the prospect of Mary Donohue stepping in in his place.”

As exit strategies go, the U.N. might be helpful in giving Mr. Pataki the foreign policy bona fides he would need to mount a campaign for the presidency. But by doing so, he could lose the remaining legislative allies he has. Such an end is not quite as foreboding as the one proposed by Mr. Brodsky. Just to be safe, the governor might consider a slightly more exotic diplomatic appointment. There is still a battle being fought over plans for the U.N. expansion in New York, and no doubt Mr. Brodsky and his Jacobins could find their way to First Avenue.

Mr. McGuire is the Albany bureau man of The New York Sun.