DENVER -- New York Governor David Paterson this morning said he was a “great admirer of the State of New Jersey.”

Paterson came a long way across the Denver Metropolitan area to speak to the New Jersey delegation at the Inverness Hotel in Englewood, Co, arriving close to an hour late after watching Gov. Corzine speak to his own delegation. After being introduced by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-Princeton), Paterson joked about the distance.

“I am a great admirer of the state of New Jersey, and I will come to any event that’s schedule that any of you invite me to,” he said. “I just want you to know that this facility is further away from the Sheraton than any geographic point in New Jersey is from New York. So if I can get here, I can get to your event.”

In honor of Holt, a physicist by trade, Paterson attempted to explain the difference between Barack Obama and John McCain through a physicist’s point of view.

“To really understand John McCain -- how obtuse he is, how distant he is -- we have to take a look at what they call in physics the parallax effect. When something is so far away that you can’t even measure, you take an object that’s a little closer, and knowing the distance between you and that object, you can now assess how far away the third body is.”

In this case, the closer object was President Bush, who Paterson claimed was closer to Obama on most issues than McCain – particularly health care, social security and tax cuts.

“It’s not even comparing him to Barack Obama, because that would be like comparing zero to infinity,” said Paterson. “But comparing him to President Bush, you know John McCain is not only not in our solar system, but is far away in a distant galaxy.”

After contrasting Bush and McCain for a few minutes, Paterson left with a pledge to personally support New Jersey’s economy.

“It is easy to come across the bridge to New Jersey any time. Basically that’s where we have to shop,” he said.