George Pataki 2016 Campaign: Will 9/11 Experience Matter To Voters?

Former New York Gov. George Pataki announced Thursday he would officially join the race to be elected the next United States president. Pataki posted a video to his website that declared his intention to run for the 2016 Republican nomination. The video focused on a small-government message and the former governor's experience leading New York through the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"America has a big decision to make about who we’re going to be and what we’re going to stand for," Pataki said in the video. "The system is broken. The question is no longer about what our government should do but what we should do about our government, about our divided union, about our uncertain future."

Pataki, 69, hasn't held office since finishing his third term in 2006 and is considered a long shot to win the nomination. Pataki considered running for president in 2000, 2008 and 2012 but backed out before launching a campaign. He has worked as a lawyer and started a consulting firm since leaving office. The former governor of New York went on to highlight his experiences during the 9/11 attacks in the video announcing his 2016 campaign.

"We have always understood that we have a common background and a common destiny, and when we stand together, we can accomplish anything," Pataki said in the video. "I saw that on the streets of New York in the days and weeks after September 11."

Thursday's announcement was not necessarily a surprise, after Pataki seemed to suggest he would be running in an interview with the New York Post earlier this week. He is scheduled to make a speech Thursday night in Exeter, New Hampshire, which claims to be the birthplace of the Republican party. Pataki, who announced his campaign just one day after Rick Santorum, is now the eighth Republican candidate to declare an intention to seek the nomination. He knows his chances are slim.

"It will be a very stiff climb up a very steep mountain, but that hasn’t stopped me in the past,” Pataki said, according to the New York Post.