Presumptive Next Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer has picked state Senate Minority Leader David Patterson as his running-mate.

This is interesting for two reasons:

1) Patterson must not have much confidence in the possibility of the Democrats taking over the state Legislature’s upper house this year. If they did that, he’d become Senate Majority Leader and, by default, one of the three most powerful men in New York. Lt. Gov. is worth a warm bucket of spit next to that.

2) Patterson, who represents Harlem and is African-American, is an ardent supporter of charter schools — and thus not totally on the same page as the teachers unions on education issues.

Eliot Spitzer has shown some hints of favoring education reform in the past, and he even said he supports education tax credits in theory the other day (which surely made Randi Weingarten’s week worse). But Patterson, by virtue of who he is and whom he represents, is indicative of a broader trend that should trouble the teachers unions. Minority legislators in New York (all Democrats) have been throwing more and more support behind charter schools as their communities experience just how amazing some of the programs — like KIPP and Achievement First — really are.

The unions can’t hold the line against this for long. They’re losing more and more ground every year — up to the point where, now, in 2006, we have a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who supports tax credits and his running-mate who supports charter schools.

Unthinkable not too many years ago.