A few weeks ago, it seemed that Andrew Cuomo was on track to break a New York curse and go through a third term. But now, troubled by a Covid scandal, his political future looks less certain.
Cuomo’s rampant controversy on Wednesday against State Assembly member Ron Kim, until recently a relatively discreet Democratic lawmaker, placed an exclamation point in the harsh politics that New York City lawmakers, as well as political agents within. and outside the state, they have long been irritated – but for the most part they feel it is unproductive to challenge him in public.
“This is the classic Andrew Cuomo,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose asymmetric war with the governor has put him on the spot numerous times, he said on Thursday on MSNBC. “Many people in New York state have received these calls. Bullying is nothing new. “
Kim, whose uncle died in a nursing home during the pandemic, is on a media tour reporting what he said were the governor’s attempts to intimidate him over the phone. The lawmaker said Cuomo called him and threatened to destroy him publicly if he did not change his statements about the admission of a Cuomo aide that the state had deliberately withheld information on the total number of deaths in asylums.
Cuomo responded on Wednesday by publicly accusing Kim of engaging in unethical behavior unrelated to the current scandal, claiming that the Assembly member “was influenced by campaign money and payment to play”. The governor’s aides reinforced the attack, saying Kim was dubious and a liar in a way that justified his display of strength, although he denies that the governor threatened his fellow Democrat.
“At no time did anyone threaten to ‘destroy’ someone with his ‘anger’ or engage in a ‘cover-up’. This is over the limit and, unfortunately, it is part of a pattern of Kim’s lies against this government, “said Cuomo’s senior advisor, Rich Azzopardi, in a statement released on Wednesday.
This is the life on the wrong side of Cuomo, whose creed for those on his way was coined at the beginning of his first term by one of his: “We operate at two speeds here: Live and kill,” Steve Cohen then Cuomo’s top aide said in an exchange first reported by the Connecticut Post in 2011.
The characterization, which emerged during a contentious discussion with the team of former Connecticut governor Dan Malloy, set the Queens native’s modus operandi to the point that it became a cliché in New York political circles. (POLITICO on Thursday confirmed the 2011 exchange with several people around Malloy at the time.)
The proverb even became something like a medal of honor for some Cuomo employees in the years that followed, convinced of their belief in their boss’s unique ability to double the state government apparatus to fulfill his vision of Democratic politics.
Cuomo’s allies note that he has faced similar criticisms of his instincts almost all the time in the public eye – setting aside his disastrous first attempt at the governor’s mansion almost 20 years ago – but he nonetheless won the four state contests by hand in which he participated and proved himself able to be a prodigious fund-raiser without fear of using that war chest against lesser-known opponents.
“This is a governor who works night and day to move the ball to the pitch for New Yorkers and they know it, which is why he has been elected and re-elected three times in the past 10 years,” said Azzopardi in a statement for POLITICO Thursday.
Stories of the governor’s cruel tactics are legion in New York and date back years, all the way to his guardianship under his father, ex-governor Mario Cuomo, whom young Cuomo reveres and has long protected fiercely.
The current governor, a diligent consumer of news clips, shares his late father’s inclination for phone calls at odd hours to reporters and others when he comes across something he finds unpleasant. (Mario’s nighttime work as a media ombudsman was extensively documented in a 1986 New York Times article.)
“This is a characteristic of Andrew Cuomo, it is not a bug,” New York Republican Party President Nick Langworthy told reporters in Albany on Thursday. “How many times have you in the media received that aggressive and shouting call from the governor or one of his subordinates?
Flattery can drag on for almost an hour and is typically one-sided, as the governor exposes his belief that his position is correct, according to people who have been receiving these calls. Your advisors’ calls can work in a similar way.
In particular, many will retell all kinds of vitrioles sent on their way by people in Cuomoworld that they find unsettling and beyond what they find elsewhere in a state reeking of harsh conversation.
The aggressive stance extends throughout the governor’s office and the main figures of various state agencies and the Democratic Party apparatus that he effectively controls. Some of the strongest invective in Cuomo’s camp came not from him, but from helpers and external allies – although they have crossed the line on the offensive on more than one occasion.
The most recent advances against Kim and other legislative critics angered many members of the legislature who backed down with the governor’s defamation against him.
“We have no interest in cursing – our goal is to restore the proper balance of power between the Legislature and the Executive,” says a statement that more than a dozen Assembly Democrats signed in support of Kim.
Disproportionate responses to nondescript disagreements and a relentless insistence on control have sometimes drawn unflattering comparisons to former presidents Donald Trump and Richard Nixon, among others.
It is not yet clear what lasting impact the saga will have on Cuomo’s image or political power. Potential opponents from both major parties are carefully assessing whether he is vulnerable enough to overthrow him if he seeks a fourth term, but has not yet officially made the leap.
There are still many powerful players who find it profitable to be on the “relationship” side of Cuomo’s ledger.
“Although we can sometimes differ, it has always been a professional and open working relationship,” said the state Sen. Joe Addabbo (D-Queens), who previously found himself at odds with Cuomo in sports betting and other issues.
However, he said he heard many “horror stories”.
“I was not as unhappy as other colleagues with anger,” he said.