Former Governor George Pataki Ends His Presidential Campaign

On Tuesday, George Pataki announced that he would be ending his presidential campaign.

Pataki, who was aiming to gain the Republican nomination, was a former governor of New York. As CNNreports, George served for three terms, and he was in office during the 9/11 attacks. Pataki had hoped that his experience being in office during the terrorist attacks would gain him votes. However, he never even qualified for prime-time debates.

In a video posted onto his social media accounts, George announced that he would be ending his campaign, and he expressed his hope that the U.S. would elect a suitable candidate to take office in the White House.

“While tonight is the end of my journey for the White House as I suspend my campaign for president, I am confident we can elect the right person. Someone who will bring us together and who understands that politicians, including the president, must be the people’s servant and not their master. I know the best of America is still ahead of us.”

Earlier this year, the Inquisitr reported that when Pataki announced that he would be running for president, he was called a “long shot” right off the bat. However, George did turn some heads when he suggested sending troops in to fight ISIS. Pataki made it clear though that he didn’t want to make it a long-term mission.

“I don’t want to see us putting in a million soldiers, spend 10 years, a trillion dollars, trying to create a democracy where one hasn’t existed. But send in troops, destroy their training centers, destroy their recruitment centers, destroy the area where they are looking to plan to attack us here and then get out… No 10 year war, no massive casualties, but protect American lives before we get attacked here.”

When it came to his opinion on how the Obama administration is planning to get rid of ISIS, George blasted the current president, saying that there is no strategy there. Pataki criticized Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on her time as secretary of state, as well.

George also slammed Republican senators running for president who said that their experience would give them a better handle on U.S. foreign policy than governors. George said he believes that as a former governor he would be better equipped to take office, as it is an executive position and that is where he has more experience.

Early into his campaign, however, Pataki was forced to cancel scheduled stops. George faced a family emergency when his 30-year-old son-in-law suffered a stroke on an airplane. The campaign was only temporarily suspended, however, and Pataki made it clear that at the time he still had plans to continue in the race for the Republican nomination.

Unfortunately though, this temporary halt in his campaign wasn’t the only setback that George had to face. It was announced earlier this month that Florida had decided not to even put Pataki on the state’s March 15 primary ballot. This was obviously a significant upset for George in his campaign.

With Pataki dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination, it leaves 11 hopefuls still campaigning for the presidency of the U.S. Apparently, the campaign strategy Pataki used just wasn’t gaining enough attention from the public. A recent poll shows that just a week ago George was receiving an incredibly low amount of support for the Republican presidential nomination, making his withdrawal from the race unsurprising more than anything.

According to a CNN/ORC poll from last week, Donald Trump has taken the lead with 39% support. Ted Cruz is under him with 18%, and Ben Carson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are all tied for third at 10%. Falling short of even 1% was former New York governor George Pataki.

Credit: Erik Kabik Photography/ MediaPunch/IPX