The challenge Cuomo deserves
The long-simmering fight for the soul of New York’s Democratic Party erupted Friday afternoon. It says a lot about our busted politics that the trigger was two big unions that count on support from state government — SEIU Local 32BJ and CWA District 1 — leaving a third party, the Working Families Party, that had counted on financial support from those unions for its mission of pushing Democrats leftward.
The labor groups left the WFP hours after the New York Times reported the party was poised to back Cynthia Nixon, the actress and longtime ally of Mayor de Blasio whose gubernatorial run is posing a nearexistential threat to Cuomo. The party line would let her keep hitting him from the left all the way to November, when he’s counting on a big reelection win as a springboard into a run for President in two years.
Four years ago, when lefty Zephyr Teachout challenged Cuomo in a Democratic primary, the WFP split between its rankand-file who wanted her and its labor backers who demanded him before, infamously, going with the gov. Cuomo appeared on screen to collect his nomination and deliver a de Blasio-brokered hostage video in which he vowed, fingers presumably crossed off-camera, to work hand in hand with them to reclaim the state Senate from Republican control.
Cuomo that year also helped gin up something called the Women’s Equality Party (recalling the Onion classic, “Man Finally Put In Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement”). The WEP appeared just before the WFP on the ballot, which mattered, because a party needs to collect 50,000 votes every four years to keep its line. This year, the labor groups leaving the WFP might form another new party to confuse voters and give the gov cover.
The unions’ power move Friday makes it plain Cuomo can’t just ignore his challenger this year, like he mostly did with Teachout. A candidate with “Sex and the City” celebrity who’s run a smart and well-staged campaign so far will get media attention whether or not he says her name. Expect must-see-TV when little brother Chris Cuomo eventually has to host Nixon on his CNN morning show.
Still, Andy says he hasn’t seen her attacks, won’t commit to a debate and is letting his flunkies fight for him. But they’ve struggled to hit the right notes going back to Christine Quinn’s “unqualified lesbian” disaster.
Cuomo clearly knows how to pull a power move, but he’s out of practice running a real race — let alone one against a progressive woman.
Already this year, he’s told what we can only hope was a joke about running a background check on a boyfriend of one of his daughters, mansplained sexual harassment to a female reporter and jawboned his way into such memorable headlines as “Four men, including one accused of forcible kissing, negotiating NY’s harassment policies.”
Like all politicians, he’s repeating what’s worked for him before, including his obsession with presenting himself as a strong leader and a man’s man.
When Cuomo — spotted last week at a fundraiser for members of the former IDC, who finally rejoined the Democratic party last month just after they’d voted with Republicans to pass the governor’s budget — spoke before the WFP four years ago, he talked about “eliminating the power of big money in our campaigns” with “a system of public financing modeled on New York City’s successful program.”
Which is a grim joke, what with how Cuomo’s family friend and campaign manager in that race was just convicted on public corruption charges, and another ally will stand trial in a few weeks for a separate corruption scheme. Meantime, there are the two witnesses who’ve testified for federal prosecutors about de Blasio’s corrupt schemes to rake in big money within “New York City’s successful program.”
New York hasn't collapsed under de Blasio or Cuomo, but neither man has been an especially impressive leader of their people or party. And their pathetic pissing match is the most unappealing such story this side of the Trump dossier.
On Cuomo’s end, he seems more interested in showing up or punishing the mayor than in helping us. It’s a dynamic I think about a few times a week during predictably terrible commutes and each time I see a state trooper here, as Gov. Big Hands keeps trying to grab the NYPD by the you-know-what.
We could have used a real election in the city last year instead of just shrugging assent to four more years for our not especially popular or successful mayor, a founder of the WFP. This year, if Nixon and the WFP hold on, we just might have a candidate who can give us a real election in the state. Here’s hoping she’s the one.