The Rise of Andrew Cuomo

The chief executive of the place with one of the largest concentrations of COVID-19 cases recorded to date is providing steady leadership and competent management with the sort of empathy and compassion you wouldn't expect from someone who grew up in Queens. 

I'm not talking about Trump, of course. I'm talking about New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo's daily press briefings from Albany and from New York City have been nationally televised in light of the fact that New York's homonymously named city is the largest city in the country (though New York State is now fourth in population) and because New York State has the most COVID-19 cases of any U.S. state by a wide margin, with a large number of those cases in the city and neighboring Westchester County.  He has leveled with the people of his state and the rest of the nation in explaining how many cases and how many deaths can be expected and giving a complete rundown of all of the personal protective equipment he needs and how much he actually has.  He's dealt with the frustrations New Yorkers and Americans have over having to be socially distant and being unable to see family members, citing his own Italian background and how much family means to him and his own relatives (including CNN's Chris Cuomo, his younger brother, who now has coronavirus, and their mother Matilda).  He has used unvarnished facts with a dose of caring, calmness, and resoluteness in dealing with COVID-19.  In other words, he's shown real leadership.

People who are sick and tired of Trump's self-congratulatory press briefings about coronavirus are demanding a Democratic rebuttal to Trump's latest reality show, but there already is one - Cuomo's.  Cuomo is now the face of the so-called Democratic "resistance" to Trump, and every time I see him, a pang of rue always cuts right through me when I remember that he wanted to run for President in 2016 and could have won had he been nominated. Instead, he was discouraged with the promise of punishment by Democratic bigwigs who had already anointed Hillary Clinton as the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee back in 2009 (just another example of how Hillary's ego ruined everything).  Ironically, Cuomo is a front runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination despite not having run; Democrats unsure of Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders are speculating if Cuomo would accept a draft nomination.  It's like a repeat of the 1988 presidential campaign, when Democrats unsure of Biden (this was before the plagiarism charges) or Gary Hart (and before Bimini) speculated if Cuomo's father Mario, then governor of New York, would accept a draft presidential nomination after he announced that he wouldn't run (in March 1987).

Don't bet on this Cuomo accepting a presidential draft either.  Not only has the Democratic Party not drafted a presidential nominee since 1952 (Adlai Stevenson, who lost), but Cuomo, like Biden and Sanders, has his own faults.  Not only is known to be ruthless and calculating, he can be brutal as well as brutally honest; he's actually proposed cutting Medicaid in the middle of the pandemic.  But he remains a powerful voice for action at a time when Trump is following more than leading.  Biden can't provide the same sort of constant communication with the country due to his current status as a private citizen, so Cuomo's daily press briefings are required viewing for people who want to see how a Democrat would handle the crisis nationally.  For better or for worse (more better than worse, thankfully), Andrew Cuomo is the leader of the opposition to Trump.     

Off To the Races

I'm not assessing former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg as a presidential candidate because I already did that in an earlier post this month - except to say that he hopes to do what Joe Biden (but also Michael Bennet and Steve Bullock) is trying to do, which is bring together the moderates, independents and suburban women who helped the Democrats win back the House of Representatives in 2018 to win.  Except that people are resenting Bloomberg for jumping in so late with the idea that he can buy the Democratic presidential nomination. Which might help Biden, who knows he has to earn it and is an ordinary guy without a lot of money.

And Biden needs all the help he can get.  His debate performance probably would have been judged more favorably by the pundits if he hadn't identified former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman in to be elected to the Senate, as the only black woman elected to the Senate when trumpeting her endorsement of his candidacy - with the second black woman elected to the Senate, Kamala Harris, standing a few feet away from him.  The last thing you want to do is diss a sista like that, especially when your whole candidacy depends on black support.  But that's better than all of the brothas and sistas dissing you.  Ask Pete Buttigieg.

But then, it's perfectly understandable that Biden would forget Harris' existence.  So have the voters.  At least Andrew Yang remembered Beto O'Rourke.

So where do I put everyone's chances in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination campaign?  They all have a 50-50 chance, because I'm beginning to think that there will be a brokered convention.  Everyone is dismissing Bloomberg's strategy to run a national primary campaign - when, unlike France, there is no national primary - and skip the first four states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina)  simply because it's never worked before.  Well, there's always a first time, isn't there?  I could say Bloomberg isn't going to win, but then in 2015 I said the same thing about Trump, and look how that turned out.  One caveat, though:  The New York mayor's office has long been a dead end for politicians ambitious for higher office, as Bill de Blasio, Rudolph Giuliani, and Fiorello La Guardia all found out when they sought or thought of seeking the Presidency and as Ed Koch found out when he ran for governor of New York State, while the New York State governorship proved to be the springboard for both Roosevelts to assume the Presidency.

Andrew Cuomo, you should have run for President.  Just don't bother running now.