ALBANY — Two weeks ago, Gov. David A. Paterson was under siege.

Calls for his immediate resignation filled the Capitol; legislators made succession plans;

and reporters leapt into a "death watch" mode, pack-tracking Paterson's every move.

"What's it going to take for you to resign?" one reporter asked Paterson during the height

of the frenzy.

But in the past week, something with a far more immediate impact on New Yorkers — the

state's rapidly descending finances — has taken over the agenda.

"We don't really have the luxury of feasting off his demise," State Sen. Bill Perkins, the

Harlem Democrat who holds Paterson's former seat in the chamber, said of the governor.

Multiple investigations of the Paterson administration have kept talk going of "scandals"

and potential "bombshells."

But a Capitol that had grown accustomed to scandals took an almost weird turn back to its

version of normalcy last week.

For Paterson, a reprieve seemed to be in the air; he found himself peppered with more

questions about the budget deficit than the various allegations that had put his

administration into a bunker-state.

"The elephant is in the room, but we can't pay attention to it right now," Perkins said of

the state's perilous finances.

Timing is everything in Albany. In this case, it's March 31 — the end of the current

fiscal year, and the state doesn't have enough money on hand to end the year in the black.

Nor have budget officials come up with an agreement to close a $9.1 billion deficit for the

coming year — which worries school districts, cities, not-for-profit organizations and

taxpayers.

If the governor was using the budget crisis as a distraction to his troubles, it certainly

worked for most of last week. He talked up the crisis with voters in Brooklyn and has another

session planned Monday for Westchester County voters. He put his lieutenant governor out front

to propose a controversial plan to deal with the coming five years of projected deficits

totaling more than $60 billion.

He also spent hours in closed-door briefings explaining and taking questions about the

budget from lawmakers — some of whom only a week earlier had been pushing his

resignation.

"Nobody went after him in a negative way," Assemblyman Mark J.F. Schroeder, a Buffalo

Democrat, said of Paterson's two-hour meeting with Assembly Democrats. The private session

ended with applause for the embattled, lame-duck governor.

Schroeder said some lawmakers stood up to support Paterson in front of the Assembly

Democrats, a group that, even long before the scandals broke, had not been shy about

expressing displeasure with the governor.

"It wasn't like he was in denial or the conference was in denial," the lawmaker said, "but

he was pretty much on task in terms of dealing with the $9 billion deficit.

"But, it goes without saying that people feel the shoe could still drop. I think everybody

understands that, too," said Schroeder, who came out early last year to publicly support State

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo for governor.

As Democrats and Republicans await the results of different investigations, no one can say

for certain whether Paterson will be able to finish his term. He insists he will, and nearly

70 percent of New Yorkers said in polls last week he should remain until the end of his term

at the end of the year, even if they rate him highly unpopular.

In Paterson, Democratic Party leaders have seen someone unwilling to bend to their advice.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, for instance, insisted that Paterson lay out his defense for

voters to assure them he engaged in no wrongdoing.

Paterson ignored Silver, choosing instead to listen to his lawyer's advice to leave any

such talk to investigators and not the media.

In Week Two, Paterson, as a result of the budget issues, tried a different course: staying

on message.

"I think he's doing it well because he realizes the stakes are very high. I think he

realizes he's got no choice but to make sure that this job gets done, and once he strays off

that and begins to get clouded in his message, I think the press will respond very quickly and

get back to the things he doesn't want to deal with right now," said Jay Jacobs, chairman of

the State Democratic Party.

The party leader, whom Paterson had handpicked for the position, accused the media of

"moving faster than the people." He talked of media convicting Paterson of wrongdoing before

investigations are completed — and long before voters were ready to tell him to quit.

"The press had already come to a conclusion. A lot of the frenzy was media-created," Jacobs

said.

But the media was not alone. Lawmakers rushed to be part of stories to say Paterson should

do everything from resign or step aside to let Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, a close ally of

Silver, take over the state budget talks.

Jacobs said discussions were held with Democratic legislators to remind them of the fall

elections, when all 212 lawmakers will be up for re-election.

"We've got to keep our eye on the ball, and not get distracted measuring when or if the

governor will resign but when and how do we balance a budget with a $9.1 billion deficit,"

Jacobs said. "I think they've gotten that message, and that's why there was a mood change in

Albany."

Will this mood last?

Lawmakers say that, for now, the focus is off the Paterson scandals — whether he or

state troopers tried to get a woman to drop domestic abuse charges against a governor's aide

and whether the governor lied about getting free tickets to a World Series game.

The governor has been emphasizing that he has more leeway than most governors to negotiate

a budget deal with the Legislature: Because he is not running for election, he does not need

to worry about raising campaign cash or angering powerful special interests.

But Perkins, among other lawmakers, note that Paterson now is a lame duck and the subject

of investigations.

"He's not at the height of his influence," Perkins said. "Does it mean he's a toothless

tiger? No, because he still has the power of the governor."