Cuomo holds rally in Midtown
‘It’s the most important election of my lifetime,’ the governor tells supporters at the Andy Murphy Center
KINGSTON, N.Y. » “Everything is on the line,” N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a Democratic rally at the Andy Murphy III Midtown Neighborhood Center Sunday morning.
Cuomo was in town stumping for his reelection bid and also with goals of Democrats flipping the U.S. House of Representatives to a Democratic majority and extending their narrow oneseat majority in the New York State Senate, where Republicans still control the body.
On hand were a number of local Democratic officials, including Kingston Mayor Steve Noble, Ulster County Executive Michael
Hein and Dutchess County Comptroller Robin Lois, who all spoke. Also present were local Democratic politicians; grassroots organizers; Democratic candidates for New York’s 19th Congressional District, including Gareth Rhodes and Antonio Delgado; 46th State Senate District candidate Pat Strong, who is seeking to unseat Republican N.Y. Sen. George Amedore; and 41st District Candidate Karen Smythe, who is challenging Republican New York Sen. Susan Serino.
Cuomo’s Press Secretary Abbey Fashouer said the rally had nothing to do with a rally planned for noon Tuesday in New Paltz by Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo in the Democratic primary.
In a lengthy speech, Cuomo attacked President Donald Trump and Congressional and state Republicans on issues including the new tax law and its effect on New York, immigration, abortion and the environment, while touting his record on gun
control, the minimum wage and a recently passed state sexual harassment policy.
He called the Hudson Valley “ground zero” for the 2018 election cycle.
“If we are going to make the change we need to make in this state, if we are going to make the statement we want to make in this election, it’s going to happen here in the Hudson Valley,” Cuomo said. “This is the place that is going to be transformative. This is the place where Democrats are going to come out stronger than ever before and we’ll have more Democratic victories than ever before.”
Cuomo called the 2018 election the most important of his lifetime.
“I’m old, it’s the most important election of my lifetime, and this is seminal moment because the choice that is posed in this election cannot be more stark,” Cuomo said. “We have an extreme conservative administration in Washington that has taken over. And everyone has had the same extreme Kool Aid.”
He added that it was taking the nation in a direction no one wants to go.
“The Republicans in this
state, they drank the Kool Aid,” Cuomo said. “There used to be moderate Republicans in New York, “Rockefeller Republicans,” they went the way of the dodo bird, they’re now all extreme conservatives.”
Cuomo shared his definition of “extreme conservative” at length.
“And they are extreme because they say it is our way or no way, there is no compromise, there is no debate, ‘we are right and you are wrong,’” Cuomo said. “It’s their way, their cultural view, their religious view, their lifestyle view, and then they say, ‘not only I believe it for myself, but I’m going to take that value and that view and I’m going to impose it upon you and your lifestyle.’ Cuomo called it hypocrisy. “Conservatives argue the exact opposite, limited government, small government, don’t infringe of individual rights, but now they want to do the exact opposite,” Cuomo said. “They want to say what relationships are appropriate between people, they want to tell a woman what she should be able to do with her body, they want to be able to tell immigrants who has the right to be here
and who doesn’t have a right to be here.”
He added the election is about a different choice and trajectory for the nation.
“Its about the soul of the country, it’s about the character of the country, it’s about the values of the country and it’s a matter of survival for the state of New York,” Cuomo said.
He praised Democrats records on individual rights and women’s rights as the audience roared.
He touted state laws on sexual harassment, while ripping Washington’s record on women’s rights and sexual harassment.
“What has Washington done? Absolutely nothing,” Cuomo said. “They’re challenging a women’s right to choose in the Supreme Court.”
And he took a jab at President Donald Trump’s reported payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
“I understand the president wants to be quiet on this topic,” Cuomo said as several audience members giggled.
“Can you imagine, if he started to talk about this? You’d hear from Stormy, then Windy, then Cloudy, then
Breezy. You’d have a whole weather report by the time you were done,” Cuomo said as the audience broke out into laughter and applause.
He praised Democrats support of LGBT rights.
“We accept them fully as our brothers and sisters,” Cuomo said, touting the passage of New York state’s Marriage Equality Act in 2011 as the audience roared.
He then turned to immigration and immigrant rights.
“We believe in the dignity and rights of immigrants,” Cuomo said. “First we think it’s the greatest act of hypocrisy that they want to stand up and say they’re not in favor of immigration.
“Unless you are member of the Sioux, the Najavo, the Cherokee or the Apache we’re all immigrants, we all came from somewhere else.”
Immigration makes the nation “stronger, not weaker,” and “diversity is a strength to be celebrated,” Cuomo asserted.
“We’re not afraid of it We’re not intimidated by it,” Cuomo said,
After discussing New York’s record on the environment and gun control, he shifted to the Republican Tax
Plan and what he called it’s devastating impact on New York’s economic viability.
He discussed at length how the law ends the longtime practice of letting taxpayers deduct state and local taxes from their Federal income taxes, which he said will take a significant chunk of New Yorker’s income next year.
“New York is the progressive capital of the nation, we can fight back, take back our country and push in the right direction,” Cuomo said.
While Cuomo did not specifically stump for any of the House or state Senate candidates, he called Rhodes, who worked in the Governor’s and Attorney General’s office for six years a “personal friend.”
“It’s great to see young talent into politics, and that’s where the energy and the change is,” Cuomo said.
In brief opening remarks Noble praised Cuomo’s support of Kingston and how Democrats could move the nation forward, while Hein touted Ulster County’s record on the environment and the creation of SUNY Ulster’s Kingston Center at the former Sophie Finn Elementary School on Mary’s Avenue.