Soon after defeating the supposedly unbeatable Mario Cuomo in New York’s 1994 gubernatorial election, George Pataki told one of his colleagues that he would have to get used to the fact that he belonged in the governor’s mansion in Albany. It is his genial, down-to-earth demeanor that won the support of New Yorkers along the campaign trail.

A native of Peekskill, New York, Pataki is a 1967 graduate of Yale and a 1970 graduate of Columbia Law School.

He was elected to the State Assembly in 1984 and was named “State Legislator of the Year” by the Environmental Planning Lobby. He was elected to the Senate in 1992, and during his tenure chaired the Senate Ethics Committee.

His Irish heritage is on his mother’s side, and is evidenced in his sense of hospitality, as he frequently opens the governor’s mansion to guests of all persuasions. As one of his opponents observed, Pataki’s is “a more social, warmer approach to politics, more in the Rockefeller style.” Pataki has recently moved into the national spotlight for spearheading the appeal to Congress to restore some of the benefits taken away from legal immigrants under the new welfare law. His concern for and identification with the immigrant population of New York was also evident during the Republican convention in San Diego, when the GOP was trying to pass a platform that called for Congress to deny citizenship to the children of undocumented aliens. Pataki put a stop to it, saying, “My grandmother came over from Ireland on her sister’s papers.” As Lars Erik Nelson of the Daily News noted, if the Republicans have their way, they would have to deport the governor of New York — the descendant of an illegal alien.