Food For Thought

King Of New York

Gov. Andrew Cuomo “decided years ago, partly by watching his father, that Democrats can’t govern effectively, that they are a tax-and-spend juggernaut, and that any power they have in the Legislature is bad for him,” Bill Lipton, a former political director of the Working Families Party, told me.

“The ease and consistency with which he does one thing in practice while arguing in public he’s doing the exact opposite – and saying anyone who suggests he’s doing this is crazy – should worry anybody who believes that executives should be transparent and accountable.”

“These are institutional advocates who by their job can never say, ‘It’s enough’,” Cuomo told me. “A sitting governor can never satiate advocates. Otherwise, they’re not advocates, by definition. I can’t. My father couldn’t.”

Cuomo and his staff, buoyed by their own internal polling and the results of his two primary challenges, contend that he is actually more popular among Democratic voters who consider themselves to be very liberal than he is among those who are closer to the center…

“They’re not the left,” one of them said (of the WFP). “They don’t represent anybody. They’re a piece of stationery.”

Nick Paumgarten
New Yorker, Oct. 12, 2020