Pataki: GOP lost because they lacked an agenda

New York Gov. George Pataki said his own Republican Party “got trounced” because it did not put forward an optimistic agenda.

“My party made the mistake of being against a lot of things, but what were we for?” Pataki asked.

In his first public comments on the mid-term election, Pataki told an audience at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Tuesday night that Democrats took power not because their party had a good message but because the incumbents didn’t have one.

“It wasn’t a repudiation of the philosophy of my party. It was more of the lack of a forward-looking agenda,” Pataki said of the elections.

Pataki is considering a run for president after he leaves office in seven weeks. An aide of his last night said paperwork to set up a presidential exploratory committee could be filed very soon. A team of advisers was set to discuss the timeline of such an announcement on Wednesday.

In an interview Pataki said he felt incoming Republican National Committee chairman Mel Martinez of Florida would help his party find an optimistic agenda.

“From all my dealings with him, particularly when he was a cabinet member, he has always had that optimistic positive view we need both governmentally and politically,” said Pataki.

A self-described “rabid Yale fan”, Pataki also took advantage of his bully pulpit to get a few digs in at Harvard's expense days before Harvard-Yale football game this weekend.

“Yale is going to crush Harvard,” said Pataki in his first comments from the stage. “They always tell you to identify with your audience right away and I figured I would leave the Red Sox and Yankees out of it.”