Life must be tough for David Paterson.

As the first African American governor of New York, he was swept in to the role amid a scandal involving an escort service and a federal investigation of his predecessor. He lands on top of a still-unbalanced budget, a multibillion-dollar state deficit and he's worried about getting elected.

But Paterson is nothing if not ballsy. I interviewed him a few months ago for TIME.com, and he had successfully made significant changes in the state's infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws. He came up with more than a billion in transportation funding, badly needed for the cash-strapped west side of the state, and even created an Office of Taxpayer Accountability.

And the Democrats (including President Barack Obama) still want to cut him off at the knees, because they don't think he can beat former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. To his credit, Paterson says he can beat Giuliani, and he may have good reason to believe so.

Giuliani tried to secure the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 by winning Florida, but he was unsuccessful.

So Paterson may have a point.

Well, win or lose, he's still going for it, so give him credit for at least that. Here he is on NBC's 'Meet the Press' last Sunday. "I'm blind, but I'm not oblivious," he tells the show's host, David Gregory. "I realize that there are people who don't want me to run. I've never gotten an explicit indication authorized from the White House that I shouldn't run."