Since its inception in 2006, this department has never been noted for its love for the Cuomo family, starting with the paterfamilias:
“Mario's WORDS were certainly more progressive than Spitzer's; Mario's DEEDS (to the extent he ever did anything but blame his complete lack of accomplishments on a Republican Senate he refused to expend any of his political capital, monetary or otherwise, on trying to alter for the better) may not so qualify.”
Further, I had no hesitation visiting the father’s sins upon the son, especially since the son had earned that bad treatment:
“If Mark Green is an arrogant bastard, Mario Cuomo was an arrogant thug with a silver tongue; and Andrew Cuomo is his father without the eloquence; a hitman’s hitman. As governor, Mario Cuomo spent 12 years talking about shining cities on a hill while not producing a hill of beans. He spent 12 years complaining about having his initiatives blocked time and again by the Republican Senate, while never investing blood or treasure to help the Democrats take control; in fact, Mario was notorious for going into the districts of Republican marginals at campaign time and singing their praises. When it came to the cause of liberalism, Mario usually talked the talk, but Mario rarely, if ever, walked the walk. In the end, Mario left the treasury of the State Democratic Party, which he operated as his personal piggy bank, with a hole almost exactly the size of the surplus in his own personal campaign account. And through it all, Andrew Cuomo was the one and only person whispering in his father’s ear, the one and only person implementing his father’s instructions. Bill Clinton got it right in that bimbo’s sex tape; Mario Cuomo was not a mobster, he just behaved like one. And if Mario was the Godfather, Andrew was Michael, Sonny, Tom Hagen, Clemenza and Tessio all rolled into one; except of course, for a key difference: Don Corleone had a sense of loyalty and was occasionally capable of helping others in need.”
My previously expressed views on Cuomo’s record have been mixed at best:
“Cuomo was a quite credible HUD secretary, especially in the area of homelessness; however, he seems to have used the New York Office mostly as a farm team for political operatives like Charles King … and Bill DeBlasio…”“In fairness though, though, I’d better acknowledge that McCain had half a good idea recently, and it involved bi-partisanship.
He suggested that it might be a good idea if the current head of the Securities and Exchange Commission were replaced by the Attorney General of the State of New York
Perhaps this was not surprising. The Cuomo family has had a long history of working together with Republicans, whether it was in Mario’s 1977 campaign for Mayor, the Cuomos' work under the table to continue GOP control of the State Senate, or Mario’s publicly comparing Fritz Mondale to a dish of polenta. Perhaps McCain knew Andrew would feel constrained by his current caseload to refrain from comment, or perhaps McCain just knew that Andrew would find some excuse to not blast him.
I’m not sure Andrew Cuomo would be such a great choice–it is not unlikely that the sea of recriminations yet to rain down will reveal a trail of blame leading in part to some of the policies Andrew himself implemented as head of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Nonetheless, the idea itself has merit, and I’ve just the candidate. He’s unafraid of angering the Wall Street powers that be and just dying to redeem a once brilliant career from its current slump. And, he’s even served as Attorney General of the State of New York.
Eliot Spitzer.”
I’ve been dreading writing my endorsement piece for the Governor’s race for a long time, since, given the beating I've given Andrew Cuomo in the past, I'd wanted to write it with enough care to credibly explain why a guy I'd essentially accused of behaving like a mobster should be Governor of the State of New York. Thank you, Carl Paladino, for saving me the trouble!
I’ve noted before, by any logical reckoning, this year should be considered one of great opportunity for New York State Republicans.
First of all, all six statewide offices are held by Democrats, four of whom got their jobs from processes other than by direct election. This situation if nearly always a killer.
Back in 1976 Minnesota, Walter Mondale got himself elected Vice President, freeing up one of the State’s Senate seats. Governor Wendell Anderson resigned, and his successor, Lieutenant Governor Rudy Perpich, appointed Anderson to the seat, a move which has nearly always proven highly unpopular. Then the State’s other Senator, Hubert Humphrey, died; and Perpich appointed Humphrey’s widow Muriel to fill out his term.
Though the other vacancies were really the occasion for either pride or sorrow, the Anderson/ Perpich swap looked sleazy because it was. And combined together with the surfeit of office holders who’d never had to face the voters in 1978, the circumstances provided the Republicans with a fool proof slogan. Imagine how it would play adapted for the Big Apple.
"Something scary is going to the New York State Democrats; it's called an election."
In Illinois, a series of vacancies resulting from both moments of pride and those of disgrace has produced elation among local Republican, who are fielding a strong slate and are loaded for bear.
In New York, there are other factors which one would think would add up to the same day of reckoning ahead.
The State is financially in a condition referred to by experts in the field as “being upon the balls of its ass.” The Governor, having assumed his office because his predecessor frequented a prostitute, differentiates himself by paying for his paramour with tax dollars instead of structured payments, and sometimes offers the excuse that he honestly thought he was canoodling with his wife.
And he’s pretty much the State Capitol’s embodiment of moral rectitude. His lack of interest in the day to day operations of government has served to insulate him from any active involvement in scandal (or anything else). It has even proven a more effective prophylactic than Shelly Silver’s passive aggression.
The Democrats further bear the burden of what appears on paper to be one-party control of State Government, and the truth that this is the case only on paper is not easily communicated in bite-size sentences.
And I didn’t even mention the national Republican tsunami soaking even the likes of Barney Frank.
"Something scary is going to the New York State Democrats; it's called an election."
Republicans what was being served by Albany was unpalatable, and having lost their majority, they also thought their portions were too small.
Because they feel that Albany stinks, the State’s Republicans have done all they can to help the one person in the State most committed to ensuring at any and all costs that David Paterson would not remain Governor:
Andrew Cuomo.
The best the Republican Establishment could do for a Gubernatorial candidate is the only man besides her husband who has ever made Hillary Clinton appear to be a figure of sympathy.
Of course revolt broke out. And the results were truly revolting.
The Great Whitebread Hope spent the last couple of moths of his campaign engaged in nothing but falafel-bashing.
But why nominate an incredible simulation of a clownish unbalanced xenophobic hothead when you can get the real thing?
If Carl Paladino had any chance of victory, this would be sufficient reason to vote for Cuomo. Since there appears to be no such chance, I think a better case must be made.
I also think Cuomo has made it.
The State is in a financial mess which is going to require painful choices be made, and then enacted into law.
Andrew Cuomo, falls within the liberal range of the ideological spectrum. He understands the need for a muscular and activist public sector. He understands what is at stake. He has run some of the programs (both in the charitable and public sectors) which most effectively address such issues.
When painful choices need to be made which cause real pain, it seems best to have someone making the decisions who feels this pain, and Cuomo does.
Further, Cuomo is a pragmatist. He understands that the suburbs are in a fully fueled tax-revolt. He understands the players and interests he’s up against. He understands that his resources are limited and that push has come to shove. He seems at least marginally more interested in the results yielded by programs than protecting the interest groups who staff them.
Perhaps David Paterson understands this too–someone who advises him surely does, and, in a novelty for his administration, they’ve actually told him the information, rather than keeping him in the dark.
But Paterson has no clue how to accomplish the goal of dealing with the State’s fiscal problems.
By contrast, Cuomo understands the carrot and he understand the stick; more importantly, he knows how to use both. He is cold-blooded and cold-hearted; and can wield the stiletto when necessary.
You don’t believe me? Did you she him make the Working Families Party beg for mercy and say uncle?
Will his choices all be the right ones? No; but we are in a situation where the wrong answers are still better than no answers at all.
Will the methods be ugly? Of course; this is New York; has anything else ever worked here?
Still, the truth is that Cuomo ugly is different that Spitzer or Giuliani ugly. It is ugly with a sense of politics.
In the world of Andrew Cuomo you get a choice. You can have your signature on the contract, or your brains. Compared to Spitzer or Giuliani, that is a bountiful smorgasbord of enticing delectable options.
Will I be complaining? I already am.
You got a better idea?
Raise taxes? Surely looking at revenues is justified, and I favor a millionaires’ tax, but democracy rests on the acquiescence of the governed.
Go ask Tom Suozzi and Andy Spano how that worked out for them.
Anyway, even with some tax increases, I expect that cuts are inevitable and (to use the language of the accountant’s profession) will really suck.
The issues about Cuomo I’ve addressed so far, sums up the worldview behind most liberal (and some conservative) critiques of Cuomo.
Two other issues also come up. The first is HUD’s relation to the financial crisis. As I noted at the time it was not certain whether “the sea of recriminations yet to rain down will reveal a trail of blame leading in part to some of the policies Andrew himself implemented as head of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.”
As things have shaken out, any blame which could be attributed in part to Cuomo seems largely to be a sideshow. The Republican strategy of blaming the entire crisis in confidence which brought down our economy on Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) is basically a Republican masturbation fantasy.
As I’ve noted:
“Let’s take the only leg of this wobbly chair of an argument that is solely concerned with helping poor and working people. CRA, a law which applies only to depository banks regulated by the Fed, does require that such institutions make efforts to expand homeownership to working people, but has no requirement that such banks check their common sense at the door. And, more to the point, the major culprits in the orgy of greed leading to our economic collapse have not been the heavily regulated depository banks, but those like Bear Stearns and Lehman, which operate outside such sunshine. And in fact, before the orgy commenced in earnest, many efforts to extend homeownership to the working poor, facilitated by CRA, had spectacularly successful repayment records.
But let’s not make unregulated banking institutions the total scapegoat here, when there is plenty of unregulated blame to go around. Is insurance too subject to regulation for one’s convenience when there’s a quick buck (or a billion) to be made? Why not call it a “credit default swap” instead and allude those pesky regulations?
As to our friends Fanny and Freddy, they weren’t exactly eunuchs at the orgy, but their role was hardly central; they didn‘t make subprime loans, but they did buy subprime loans made by others. In the riot which took place, they didn’t throw the brick through the window, but like many others not necessarily disposed to criminal activity they weren’t above entering the store and taking a television and a box of diapers.
But blaming this crisis on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the CRA is like blaming the Federal Budget deficit on earmarks. What idiot would do something like that? Part of the problem? Of course, but eliminate it from the mix and it won’t make much of a difference. One might as well blame the spread of AIDS on KY Jelly.
In point of fact, the effort to shift the focus to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the CRA is nothing but an attempt to obscure who’s to blame for the lion’s share for the mess we face, a mess stemming largely from too little regulation and too much greed.”
And, I think the same can be said of efforts to lay more than but a small portion of this blame on Andrew Cuomo.
Finally, there is the accusation that Cuomo has been less than fully aggressive as AG in dealing with public corruption.
I think Alan Hevesi, Pedro Espada and Eliot Spitzer would all have reason to disagree. I do think more could have been done, but I could say that about every AG in my lifetime, including Eliot Spitzer.
Spitzer made Carl Andrews (Clarence Norman’s political Siamese twin, joined at the wallet, and the Star of “Aqueduct Escapades“) his political right arm in the AG’s and Governor’s offices, pretty much punted a politically inconvenient investigation of Ruben Diaz, and managed to ignore virtually every politician that folks complain was ignored by Andrew Cuomo.
The AG isn’t really a prosecutor, but Cuomo’s dealt honorably with every matter of public corruption he could not avoid, as well as a few which he probably could have. In a state so rife with corruption that missing a few targets is unavoidable, he’s done just as well as anyone else who’s ever held his position.
Admittedly, this is probably not enough, but it’s probably better than either of his likely successors will do.
Yet, those who expect that Cuomo will be a pushover for political bosses do not include the bosses themselves, who understand quite clearly from prior experience that the worst way to avoid being garroted by members of the Cuomo family is to do them a service.
Ask the bosses of the Working Families Party how that worked out for them.
We are in an era when ingratitude has become a credential for holding office, and there is seemingly no greater ingrate in NYS than Andrew Cuomo (and that‘s saying quite a lot).
Plus, Cuomo did the nation the public service up keeping up the heat on Wall Street first undertaken by Spitzer, when he easily could have lowered the flames
Under the circumstances, I think Cuomo is not merely our best choice, but pretty much our only choice.
Cuomo is an offer you can’t refuse.
And there’s the rub. That just isn’t good enough.
I’ll be voting for Cuomo, and doing so on the Democratic line, but I think those who are angry about their choices have a right to be so.
I expect there will be an awful lot of protest votes cast in this election, and I’m alright with that. But such votes can have real and dangerous consequences, so in part two I will address the matter of how best to cast an intelligent protest vote.