This Seems Like A Good Way To Get Out Of Having To Run Again

For the sake of everyone, jokes about the governor’s eyesight have been omitted:

Gov. Paterson was spotted nuzzling, neck-kissing and cooing like a smitten schoolboy with a pretty young woman — not his wife — in a New Jersey steakhouse yesterday afternoon, The Post has learned.

“I saw him kissing her neck,” said Sharon Farrell, a lawyer sitting two tables away from Paterson and his mystery gal pal at the River Palm Terrace in Edgewater. “He was right on her neck, nudging, like back and forth.”

. . .

Farrell’s friend and dining companion, special-ed teacher Carol McGuirt, said Paterson and his lady friend, a leggy Latina in her 20s, were ensconced in a cozy, curved banquette for several hours during lunch, and clearly were enjoying each other’s company — immensely.

“A young, young girl was with him,” McGuirt said of Paterson, who was stylishly accoutered in a shiny purple dress shirt and slacks. “I would say they looked like a young couple who are very into each other . . . and enjoying themselves.”

Here’s One Way You Show Outrage For Excessive Wall Street Bonuses

In a record year for bonuses, it’s reasonable to make them take Town Cars like every other self-respecting fat cat:

The X25 bus, an express line transporting financial hotshots from Grand Central Terminal to Wall Street, will soon be eliminated by MTA bean counters, CEO Jay Walder said yesterday.

The line — and many others like it that will also soon hit the cutting block — is essentially an exclusive club for just 20 daily riders.

“It costs the MTA $80 per person to run this service,” Walder said. “I can assure you that we won’t be running the X25 much longer . . . This cannot continue to go on and on. There are services that no longer make sense.”

$108,371,685.01

Another Friday document dump from the Bloomberg campaign:

Mayor Bloomberg’s final tab for his third-term victory was a stratospheric $108,371,685.01.

The total, in documents released Friday, included millions of dollars in fat bonuses paid to his campaign staff, many of whom received victory gifts worth 20% of their salaries.

Campaign manager Bradley Tusk, spokesman Howard Wolfson and First Deputy Mayor Patti Harris each made out particularly well — earning $400,000 bonus checks each.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

Poor Old Detroit, What’s It Good For?

It’s not just for blunt-force racial coding during campaigns . . . when we get to three it’ll be a trend:

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that President Obama’s plan to slap a tax on banks is aimed squarely at the city’s lifeblood and could turn Manhattan into a crumbling wreck like Detroit.

Bloomberg warned that the plan could bring about the collapse of the city’s financial sector and starve New York of revenue it needs to provide basic services.

. . .

“And if you want to see what happens to a city when their major industry fails, just take a look at Detroit,” which has been reeling from the collapse of the auto industry.

Harlem As Soundstage For Political Theater (Or, How Harold Ford Discovered That Food In Memphis Was Much, Much Better Than That Which You Get Around Here)

Does anyone go to Sylvia’s to actually eat anymore? Recently we’ve seen Bill O’Reilly, Caroline Kennedy and now Harold Ford:

Harold Ford’s potential Senate bid will get a tasty photo op Friday: He’s having lunch with influential Assemblyman Keith Wright (D-Harlem) at Sylvia’s, the famed Harlem eatery.

. . .

The former Tennessee congressman has been working hard behind the scenes to pick up support among Democratic leaders, the vast majority of whom are already pledged to Gillibrand. But Wright has yet to back anyone — making him one of the few county leaders whose endorsement is still up for grabs.