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The governor of New York addressing state budget deficits and lagging revenues is a part of the job, and the night before is assumed to be one of meetings with financial advisors that ran over into the early morning hours. Number crunching. Not for Governor Paterson!

Just a few short hours before Governor Paterson delivered the news that New York’s is the state of wreckage that will likely take years to recover, he was partying it up at a Chelsea hotspot on Hip-Hop night with Russell Simmons.

According to the New York Post, Governor Paterson spent hours at the swanky nightclub, Taj, joining overlapping cocktail parties including a birthday party for BET executive Rhonda Cowan.

Many wonder, what’s the big deal? Well, nothing really…if his performance reflected some sort of upward bound motion towards digging the state out of dire financial straits. But Paterson’s poll numbers are all but mediocre, he’s failed to raise a reasonable amount campaign fund-raising and faces heavy opposition within his own party, the Democrats.

The very next day, Paterson called on the Legislature to address a massive budget gap that has soared to $2.1 billion in a short three months.

The governor blamed his latest grim forecast, which plunges the state’s budget gap to $38.2 billion over the next four years, on tax collections and job losses.

Given the state of the economy, a Brooklyn blogger by the name of Tionna Smalls, who outed Paterson with a call to Gawker.com after leaving the party herself, was less than impressed.

“I mean it’s a nice event for a regular person like me that’s going to come up — but not for a governor,” Smalls said.

Paterson has become a frequent on the cocktail-party circuit since taking office after former Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned after getting busted for hiring high-price hookers.

“I have some advice for him: Stay his A$$ out the clubs,” Smalls said.