Former Gov. George Pataki has launched a national PAC and is traveling the country to call for the repeal so-called “Obamacare” – a move widely viewed as an effort to raise his name recognition in advance of a possible run for the White House in 2012.

But the Putnam County Republican would perhaps have been better served to set his sights a little lower – maybe opting for that challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand – in light of the results of today’s Marist poll.

Seventy-one percent of New Yorkers polled said Pataki shouldn’t run for president – including 80 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of so-called blanks.

However, Pataki can seek solace in the fact that he remains popular in the state he led for 12 years. Thirty-three percent of voters said he is the best governor for New York in recent decades, compared to 31 percent who picked the man he ousted in 1994, former Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Scandal-scarred former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (9 percent) beat both his successor, Gov. David Paterson (3 percent), and one of his predecessors, ex-Gov. Hugh Carey (4 percent). No one opted for the late former Gov. Malcolm Wilson.

Update: YNN’s Curtis Schick sat down with Marist Pollster Lee Miringoff to further explain the latest numbers.

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