For months I’ve doubted the poll-driven story line that Andrew Cuomo is unbeatable in the Democrats’ mayoral primary.
Despite his consistent lead of 20 or more points over a large field, I believed Cuomo’s enormous Albany baggage would be a burden and as more voters paid attention, he would be vulnerable to younger, fresher opponents.
His weak performance Monday convinced me the day of reckoning is growing closer.
It’s an understatement to say the former governor’s meeting with Post editors and reporters did not go well.
He appeared to sense as much about halfway through the two-hour slug-athon as his shoulders sagged and his customary combativeness grew perfunctory.
The toughest questioning focused on his nearly 11-year run as governor and his repeated portrayal of himself as a lone, courageous moderate against the emerging socialist wing of his party.
But his resistance, such as it was, only went so far.
His signature is on a wide range of legislation destroying the city and state.
Progressive nonsense
From crime and disorder to radical climate policies, from rotten schools to congestion pricing, Cuomo gave the green light to a mountain of progressive nonsense.
“A governor is not a dictator,” he said in a weak defense.
“I always made the best deal I could.”
It’s part of his routine, that politics is a dirty game even as he spends a lifetime being the son of a politician and one himself.
The problem in Albany, he insisted repeatedly, is that socialist Dems “intimidated” moderate lawmakers, which allowed the far left to set the agenda.
Because Republicans are a toothless minority, and because Gov. Hochul has surrendered to the same radical madness, the entire state is suffering through a long losing streak.
To be fair, Cuomo had real achievements.
He focused on infrastructure, and is proud of the new La Guardia Airport, the Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station and the new Tappan Zee Bridge, which he named the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge after his father, the governor from 1983 to 1994.
Also, there was Andrew’s annual tax cap of 2% limited increases in suburban property taxes, which were driven higher by Albany mandates and teachers-union contracts.
Still, it’s hard to argue that Cuomo should be mayor because the terrible things coming out of Albany would have been worse without him.
It’s not a compelling message, especially with the City Council and city prosecutors growing more radical by the day.
Would he just be their speed bump, too?
There are two additional crucial points about his Albany tenure: his fatal nursing-home order during the COVID pandemic and the pileup that forced his 2021 resignation.
Next Tuesday will mark the fifth anniversary of the infamous state Department of Health order demanding that nursing homes accept infected COVID patients being released by hospitals.
The order prohibited refusals, saying, “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
Tragic commingling
Many homes were simply too small or crowded to segregate the new arrivals, yet had to accept them immediately.
Later, Cuomo would be caught trying to minimize the impact by hiding the number of nursing-home deaths, which investigators found surpassed 15,000.
A state comptroller’s report said he intentionally undercounted the total by more than 4,100.
As he did Monday, Cuomo always ridicules allegations that he falsified the numbers to protect a book contract that netted him $5 million.
Yet there would have been no book contract if the true death totals were known earlier.
Legions of families were not fooled, nor have they forgotten.
They are organizing against Cuomo, which is why I am baffled that he hasn’t accepted responsibility and apologized for what was a deadly error.
Asked in a recent TV interview about regrets, he said he wished he had moved sooner to get more police on subways.
The failure to mention nursing homes is heartless and undercuts any reason to trust his leadership.
He can’t even bring himself to admit the order was a mistake, even though he rescinded it six weeks after it was issued.
Instead, he and aides continue to claim falsely that the order, which they now call an “advisory,” followed federal guidelines.
That’s not true because the feds tell nursing homes not to accept any patient they can’t properly care for.
Cuomo’s order removed that crucial requirement.
Of course, the allegations of sexual harassment were the final nail in his tenure.
None of the 11 cases substantiated by investigators led to criminal charges, though there have been civil cases.
He resigned because he had no choice.
Democrats controlled the Legislature, but he would have been impeached, convicted and removed from office.
He gave up when he realized he had no support, with even President Joe Biden telling him to quit.
As one Albany observer put it, Cuomo had 100 accomplishments but not a single friend.
Self-examination
I have known Cuomo for decades, though we had no contact for several years until he was preparing to run for City Hall.
At our first meeting, I asked how he had become such poison that nobody defended him at the end.
His answer suggested he was doing some serious self-examination, which I thought was a good sign.
Beyond his finding personal peace, there was no way he could rise from the political dead if he didn’t understand why he had become a pariah in the first place.
Yet still he is avoiding public honesty about the nursing-home order.
He cites continuing court cases but insisted he has met with some families to express condolences.
It’s not nearly enough and it might already be too late to come clean, with his primary opponents already exploiting the issue.
That’s just part of the huge burden he carries from Albany, which is why I believe polls at this point are more about name recognition than actual support.
And in Cuomo’s case, the fact that everybody knows his name isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Anguish continues for Israel
From Michael Oren, writing for Clarity:
“While deeply moving, President Trump’s recent meeting with former Hamas hostages was also depressing. Eight Israelis — unbowed, patriotic, and highly representative of our society as whole — told the president that their state had let them down. The only hope for the remaining hostages rested with America, they implicitly said, and its ability to pressure the Israeli government.
“If this message were not sufficiently dismaying, Eli Sharabi, freed only a month before, after 491 days of hellish captivity, presented Trump with a two-paneled drawing. On one side were three Holocaust prisoners, and, on the other, three Israeli hostages. Except for the barbed wire interning the first and the Hamas terrorists looming over the latter, the subjects were identically gaunt and humiliated.
“Never Again,” pledged the heading over the Holocaust victims, while above the hostages wept a single word, “Again.”
