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Former New York Gov. George Pataki is the latest Republican to consider jumping into the presidential race. The New York Times' Thomas Kaplan broke the news that the campaign was serious Tuesday night, reporting that the governor is making "a high-profile appearance in Iowa this weekend." Wednesday morning, the New York Observer's editors responded, "Admit it: when you heard that George Pataki was preparing a presidential campaign, you thought you heard wrong. Then you laughed. And then you laughed a little louder." But it looks like Pataki 2012 is no joke: PolitickerNY's Azi Paybarah noticed Wednesday that the Republican's campaign website was online. It was quickly taken down.

Capital Tonight talked to Pataki's spokesman, who said the hosting company accidentally made the site searchable too soon. The campaign still might not happen, the spokesman said. But Paybarah was able to make some quick observations about the site:

... if you try logging onto the site, it brings you to a page that shows some of Pataki’s site. One category is called “Pataki’s Record” which has links to things like “budget” “taxes” “job and business climate” “national security” “welfare” “death penalty and crime” “healthcare” “k-12 education” and “higher education.” No mention of immigration, or other social issues -- like abortion or gay rights -- where Pataki is notably to the left, compared to the rest of the Republican field.

Republican consultant Mike Murphy tweets "(Image Landau as Karloff voice:) They laughed, LAUGHED, when I predicted Pataki ten weeks ago in TIME." Daily Intel's Chris Rovzar is still laughing at the thought of the socially liberal blue-state Republican running, though not that way. "This is very clearly the website of someone running for Vice-President. In which case, well, carry on."

A screengrab of Pataki's site, via Paybarah:

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