Former NY GOP governor Pataki enters race for president

Long shot Republican nominee points to successful 11-year career at the helm of the Empire State

CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) — George Pataki, the former three-term New York governor, announced Thursday that he’s joining a crowded Republican field for the 2016 presidential contest, after flirting with the idea of running in both 2008 and 2012.

Clearly a long-shot, Pataki has cited his electoral success in a heavily Democratic state — he knocked off the late liberal icon Mario Cuomo to become governor in 1994 — and ability to work with Democrats as among his strengths.

In a video posted Thursday morning on YouTube, Pataki says the U.S. needs to recapture the spirit of unity among all Americans that spread through the country after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He was in his second of three terms as governor when the attacks struck New York and Washington, and Pataki highlights his role in New York and the country’s recovery in the video.

“We are all in this together. And let us all understand that what unites us is so much more important than what might seem superficially to divide us,” Pataki says in the video which includes a logo that reads, “Pataki for President.”

Pataki says, “If we are to flourish as a people, we have to fall in love with America again.”

Pataki is also scheduled to speak Thursday in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the state that holds the first presidential primary vote.

Pataki has spent recent months promoting his conservative credentials, as those running for the Republican nomination invariably do.

In an earlier trip to New Hampshire, he campaigned against President Barack Obama’s health care law, criticized Obama’s executive order to offer protections against deportation to millions of immigrants living in the country illegally, and said the nation can’t afford another Democratic president. He also has called for less government spending and limiting government power.

“We’ve seen an explosion in government power from Washington and the government is far too big, far too powerful, far too expensive and far too intrusive,” Pataki said in New Hampshire earlier this year. “The need to reform Washington dramatically and reduce its power and influence has never been greater.”

Pataki, 69, has worked as a lawyer and opened a consulting firm since leaving office in 2006. He’s been a frequent visitor to the early nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire over the years, and has made more than half a dozen trips to New Hampshire this year alone as he explored a 2016 campaign. His earlier efforts never resulted in a full-fledged campaign, however.

Known for his low-key style, he is trying to distinguish himself in a large pack of rivals, filled with big personalities.