The govs are off
Heat over ‘anti-Semitic’ smear at Cynthia
It was a last day of campaigning in New York City unlike any other in memory.
Gov. Cuomo spent the day dodging reporters as questions mounted over links between his inner circle and efforts to smear challenger Cynthia Nixon with an anti-Semitic mailer.
Critics — who included some Cuomo allies — demanded accountability just hours before Democratic voters across the state head to the polls to pick the party’s candidates for much of the November ballot.
Polls in New York City are open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“Heads need to roll,” said City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who has endorsed Cuomo. “It’s unacceptable, despicable. It’s pitting communities against one another. [It’s] lying about an individual. This is the dark underbelly and worst side of politics.”
His remarks followed a rally outside of City Hall where other Jewish officials and rabbis decried the mailer sent by the state Democratic Party, which linked Nixon — the mother of two Jewish children — to the growing scourge of anti-Semitism.
Councilman Mark Levine, another Cuomo supporter, warned the sleazy tactic could hurt the fight against true anti-Semites.
“We risk diluting our fight against real anti-Semites when we call someone like Cynthia Nixon — who is manifestly the opposite of anti-Semitic — by that very, very serious charge,” the Manhattan Democrat said.
Even one of the most vocal defenders of Israel’s controversial West Bank settlements spoke up in Nixon’s defense. “It was unconscionable an unacceptable for Cuomo and the state Democratic Party to do this,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who said he would no longer vote for Cuomo.
Cuomo denied advance knowledge of the mailer. But sources said it was drafted and approved by his closest advisers, including former top aide Larry Schwartz.
“Schwartz was very involved with the mailer and signed off on it,” a source said, describing him as a “henchman” and “enforcer.”
The Cuomo campaign released a statement largely confirming The Post’s reporting on the issue — while claiming Schwartz somehow missed the “negative section” of the mailer before giving the green light to distribute it.
“Larry Schwartz, who serves on our campaign in a volunteer capacity, was reviewing mail pieces in an ad hoc fashion, but he only saw the positive section of the mailer and never saw the negative section,” said Cuomo campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith.
“Had he seen it, it would have never gone out.”
As the storm over the mailer grew, Cuomo sprinted from event to event — from Westchester to The Bronx to Queens — without notifying the press, in an apparent attempt to dodge reporters. At the end of the Queens event, Cuomo hustled out a side door.
Meanwhile, Nixon campaigned across the city.
The gubernatorial candidates weren’t alone in last-minute barnstorming across the city. Cuomo was joined by his running mates, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul and attorney general hopeful Letitia James, the city’s public advocate.
The challengers campaigned together, too.
Nixon was joined by Councilman Jumaane Williams, who is running for lieutenant governor, in Queens. She later paired up with attorney general hopeful Zephyr Teachout in Manhattan.
The ballot includes more than those top-tier statewide races.
Registered Democrats in state Senate districts in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens will also have their say in shaping the next party that controls the statehouse.
Several incumbents — The Bronx’s Jeff Klein, Manhattan’s Marisol Alcantara, Queens’ Jose Peralta and Tony Avella, and Brooklyn’s Jesse Hamilton — all face spirited challenges because of their membership in the Independent Democratic Conference.
The breakaway group of lawmakers, now disbanded, often allied with Republicans to cement GOP control of the state Senate in return for pay bumps, office perks and extra money for their districts.
Even top supporters of Gov. Cuomo are refusing to swallow his blanket denials of any involvement in that scurrilous campaign mailer implying campaign foe Cynthia Nixon is anti-Semitic. Yet Team Cuomo spent the hours before Thursday’s primary hunkered down in its political bunker, refusing to answer questions about the growing scandal.
Except, that is, for accusing The Post of “a violation of journalistic ethics” by reporting that one of the governor’s top campaign aides had repeatedly tried to pitch a story that mirrored the flyer’s talking points before it became public knowledge.
In other words, Cuomo & Co. are more indignant over The Post undercutting his lame “I knew nothing” excuse than about the malicious mailer itself, which the gov has mildly criticized as “inappropriate.”
Funny: No one at Cuomo’s campaign or the Cuomo-controlled Democratic State Committee, which paid for and sent out the mailer, will identify who was responsible — other than a mysterious “individual helping the campaign.”
Nonsense, says former Syracuse Mayor and state party Chairwoman Stephanie Miner. Based on her experience, she told The Post, there’s “no way” this happened “without the consent of Andrew Cuomo or one of his top lieutenants.”
Several other veteran campaign operatives told Politico the same thing: The “central approval process” Cuomo says he wants instituted “moving ahead” already exists — and it revolves around the top levels of the governor’s campaign.
Which is why Cuomo supporters like City Council Speaker Corey Johnson are demanding that “heads need to roll” for this “despicable” attack — for which no one has even apologized to Nixon. But the governor’s campaign plainly means to stick with its “bunker” strategy.
That leaves New York to wonder: If Cuomo acts this desperately when polls show him with a 40-point lead, what dirty tricks would he resort to in a real horse race? Come the fall campaign, we just might find out.