How Wrong Is Andrew Cuomo? Let's Count the Ways

More on Cuomo's corruption problem — or one of them — here.

 by Thomas Neuburger

Andrew Cuomo takes money from rich people, sneers at principled rivals, says taxes on rich people aren’t politically possible, and then implements left policies only if he can get rich people to approve them first.
—Lyta Gold's partial summing-up of Andrew Cuomo (see below for more)

Andrew is vindictive. He wants to punish people. And he gets joy out of that.
—A Democratic strategist, quoted in New York Magazine

…a hands-on manager who prefers vise-grip control…
—Anna Gronewold, Politico
 
Last week I scratched the surface of what's wrong with nominating New York's Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo as a substitute for Joe Biden in the November race for president (see, "Political Retaliation: Cuomo Proposes Kicking Third Parties Off the NY Ballot").

But there's so much more that's wrong with Cuomo. Yes, he's a mean-spirited man who loves to retaliate against his enemies, but he also stands for nothing more than the interests of the rich and his own aggrandizement. And as his stint as governor shows, he's so hates progressive policies that he empowered New York's Republican Party in order to neuter Democrats who were to his left. And he's corrupt.

That's a terrible combination. Imagine what Andrew Cuomo would be like as president — stabbing progressives in the back while smiling on MSNBC and CNN, gratefully accepting their loving praise and the generosity of the wealthy he serves. Worse, he'd be much more effective at causing damage than even the barely competent Trump, because whatever else Cuomo is, he's also competent.

The best go-to piece on all that Cuomo has going against him was written by Lyta Gold and published in Current Affairs under the title "Stop Trying to Make Andrew Cuomo Happen."  It's well worth the fifteen minutes or so it will take to read it. The writing is sparkly and the research is solid and complete.

Here's a taste. Under the subhead "Andrew Cuomo is a garbage person," Gold offers this list (I've shortened it in the interest of your time and added some bolded emphasis):

Andrew Cuomo is a liar and effectively a Republican. When Cuomo was first inaugurated in 2011, he was supposedly stymied by a difficult, intractable Republican state Senate. Technically, the New York Senate was majority Democratic, but a group of conservative Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) broke away to caucus with the Republicans, essentially becoming Republicans in all but name. (So basically, they acted like conservative Democrats everywhere, only this time they were super obvious about it.) You may be familiar with one of the IDC’s chief strategists: Lis Smith, top advisor for the failed Buttigieg campaign. For his part, Cuomo claims he had nothing to do with the IDC. This is a lie. According to sources cited in a Politico report, “[Cuomo] and his staff were active in ‘nudging’ [the IDC] along behind the scenes.” The sources also claimed that Cuomo wanted to “ensur[e] that Republicans had control over the agenda in the Senate, so that he wouldn’t be handing over power to New York City Democrats.” ... When asked about the IDC, Cuomo still pretends he had nothing to do with them. He defines himself as a progressive, and specifically as “an effective progressive. A competent progressive, an accomplished progressive. Progressive not just in words, progressive in actions.” Now, “progressive” is a slippery term with many meanings, but I don’t think “letting Republicans do whatever they want while pretending you WOULD pass legislation that would save people’s lives, if only you COULD” is any kind of progress.

Andrew Cuomo doesn’t give a shit about gay people. In one of his often-touted accomplishments, Andrew Cuomo legalized gay marriage in New York State in 2011. As per the Atlantic profile, the bill had long been sponsored by openly gay congressman Danny O’Donnell, but Cuomo wanted it to be sponsored by “his team” instead. According to O’Donnell, Cuomo’s chief of staff threatened him over O’Donnell’s unwillingness to give up the bill. “You’ll never work again,” the chief of staff is reported to have said. “I’ll make it my mission in life to destroy you.” In the end, O’Donnell surrendered the marriage equality bill he’d been fighting to pass for over a decade, while Cuomo signed it and was acclaimed an LGBTQ rights champion. O’Donnell told Dovere: “It’s only about getting [Cuomo] credit. He only cares about credit.” The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), among other LGBTQ organizations, endorsed Cuomo’s gubernatorial re-election campaigns, and the HRC made him a speaker at their 2019 New York gala. (The organization has a talent for supporting powerful people over the interests of actual LGBTQ people: see here and here.) Pramila Jayapal, a left-leaning congresswoman from Washington and the sponsor of the Medicare for All bill in the House, says that “most of Cuomo’s progressive accomplishments, such as gay marriage, are what [New York’s] big donors want anyway.” It’s pretty obvious that you’re not “progressive” if you’re bullying gay politicians into letting you take credit for their work, and only doing the work in the first place because the local rich people said you could.

Andrew Cuomo doesn’t give a shit about women or reproductive justice. With the help of the IDC, the Republican-controlled state Senate shot down critical reproductive health initiatives for years. ... This, by the way, didn’t stop the IDC from stealing reproductive justice valor in 2017, when they issued mailers claiming that Planned Parenthood endorsed several IDC candidates. This was a lie, and Planned Parenthood had to tell them to stop. Shortly after the IDC’s defeat in the 2018 midterms, Cuomo signed both reproductive health bills into law and—you guessed it—proudly took credit, while simultaneously reassuring conservatives that the RHA “does little more than codify Roe v. Wade into state law.” At the signing ceremony for the RHA, Cuomo wore a pink tie and gave an award to Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who argued the Roe case before the Supreme Court. Politico quotes her as saying, with irony, “The governor’s tie indicates the depth of his sincerity.”

Andrew Cuomo really, really does not give a fuck about women. Cuomo was supported in his gubernatorial re-election campaigns—the first against attorney and activist Zephyr Teachout in 2014, the second against actress and activist Cynthia Nixon in 2018—by the Women’s Equality Party. “Wow!” you might think. “The Women’s Equality Party supported Andrew Cuomo against two women candidates? He must be great on women’s issues.” You would be wrong. The Women’s Equality Party (W.E.P.) supports Cuomo because he founded them in 2014 when he was running against Zephyr Teachout. As Ginia Bellafante reports in a blistering New York Times article, the Women’s Equality Party is something like “a political shell company,” that has a history of endorsing more conservative male candidates over left-leaning female candidates. ...

Andrew Cuomo doesn’t care about the people of Queens. When Amazon flirted with headquartering itself in Queens, Cuomo bowed and scraped in order to get their business. He even jokingly offered to change his name to “Amazon Cuomo” in exchange for the new headquarters. While Amazon promised the creation of 25,000 new jobs, they would pretty much all have been white-collar jobs, offered mainly to educated out-of-staters and not the immigrant, working-class residents of most of Queens. The mega-corporation would also have been granted an obscene $3 billion in tax breaks just for deigning to destroy the borough. Thankfully, local activists in alliance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other New York Democrats tanked the Amazon deal and saved Queens. In typical Cuomo fashion, he loudly blamed the “small group [of] politicians [who] put their own narrow political interests above their community,” and then got sneaky, contacting Jeff Bezos directly to beg Amazon to reconsider. When it comes to kinks, to each their own, but personally I can’t imagine anything less sexually appealing than a public official who once begged the richest man on earth for table scraps. A few months ago, Amazon decided it would move into Manhattan’s ritzy Hudson Yards neighborhood anyway without needing to be bribed by tax breaks first, just as AOC predicted would happen. Queens is safe, and the most annoying neighborhood in Manhattan is getting another corporate headquarters, all despite Andrew Cuomo’s best efforts.

Andrew Cuomo doesn’t take leftist ideas seriously, and he doesn’t like to do things that might be hard. If you’re looking for Cuomo’s other accomplishments, they might seem somewhat impressive…on the surface. He worked with Bernie Sanders to help bring a $15 minimum wage and paid family leave to New York, along with (means-tested) free public college. ... The problem is that Cuomo’s progressive commitments are minimal at best. He favors policies that he believes are doable, but not the ones he’s already decided can’t be done. ... Cuomo received a “hero’s welcome” for the $15 minimum wage bill, but he isn’t willing to stick his neck out on anything difficult or really meaningful, especially not if it scares off rich people. He blames his blinkered imagination and lack of political courage on voters themselves. ...[Yet] Polls show that a majority of voters actually favor bold policy proposals such as Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, and public opinion may shift even further given the twin realities of the pandemic and subsequent economic collapse. But in praising Joe Biden, who opposes both Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, Cuomo mocks leftist ideas: “[Biden] knows what he’s talking about, he’s experienced, he is relatable, he knows how to get things done, he wants to get things done, he’s not blowing smoke, he’s not a blue-sky puffer…He’s not, ‘Health care for all, Social Security for all! Everything for all!’” Ah yes, that impossible pie-in-the-sky ambition of everyone having Social Security.

Andrew Cuomo is a constant thief of progressive valor. In fact, Cuomo is only willing to undertake bold policy as long as someone else does the difficult work of popularizing it first. Jayapal describes Cuomo as “a politician’s politician. He is not a movement politician; he’s not the person who comes up with the bold ideas first and does the work to push it forward…You can be a politician’s politician and tough to move on an issue until you see a public out there that’s clamoring. You still deserve credit for getting it done, but where were you when an issue was not popular?” We can see the proof of this in Cuomo’s reaction to Cynthia Nixon, his 2018 leftist primary challenger. During the primary, Cuomo moved left to fend off Nixon’s candidacy. Once he won, many of her policies made their way into his new “Justice Agenda,” including legalizing marijuana, the above mentioned Reproductive Health Act, a Green New Deal for New York State, a middle-class tax cut, and banning corporate campaign contributions. When Cuomo released the proposals in December 2018, he “compared himself to FDR, and said ‘Now is the time to lead.’” Nixon has noted with amusement that she successfully pushed Cuomo left, but he’s failed to acknowledge her influence on his agenda. In fact, in a recent press conference, he took an unnecessary shot at her, laughing at the very idea of her—a former actress who starred in a show about S-E-X!!!—as governor of New York during the coronavirus crisis. Andrew Cuomo is a cynic who stole a woman candidate’s work and took the credit for it.

Andrew Cuomo believes in nothing except his own legacy and making sure rich people keep their money. If you ask Cuomo, however, he’ll insist on his progressive credentials. When his record is criticized, he blames “the professional left” whom he describes as members of “‘the greatest scam in history. What does it mean, ‘professional left’? Basically, a sham set of groups that are fronts for labor unions…They were all with Cynthia Nixon, the professional left.’” ... [P]ollster and Albany insider Steve Greenberg described Cuomo’s appeal to Politico as “a progressive who gets things done.” But what does it really mean to “get things done?” Are progressive policies, as Cuomo has claimed on multiple occasions, really at risk of driving a significant number of rich people out of the state? There is some evidence that rich people are leaving New York, but even Forbes admits that the problem is as much “costly living expenses [and] crumbling infrastructure” as the tax rate. The real obstacle to progressive policies in New York, according to Bill Lipton, executive director of the Working Families Party, is Andrew Cuomo. “I tried to work with the guy for eight years, because we’re the WFP—we’re not the Green Party. We’re trying to actually get stuff done…The truth is Cuomo has no policy or values base at all. What he cares about is keeping taxes low on his donors.” ...

Andrew Cuomo is beholden to rich people. The source of Cuomo’s petty feud with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is not, as most people think, the New York City subway. The badly-needed subway upgrades were definitely a source of tension: “Cuomo argued that the city owned the subway and that Mayor Bill de Blasio needed to pay for half of the repairs. De Blasio pinned the blame on the Metropolitan Transit Authority, a state agency controlled, for all practical purposes, by Cuomo.” But the battle may also have been over de Blasio’s universal pre-kindergarten plan, which is paid for by a “millionaire’s tax” on the richest residents in the state. Cuomo, according to a former adviser quoted in New York Magazine, was furious about the tax. “He told the mayor, ‘We’re going to give you pre-K. It may take a while. We may have to bang you around a little bit. But you’re getting pre-K. Now, understand my politics, Bill. I just fought off this millionaire’s tax. I need the business community right now because I’ve got to get an on-time budget.’” De Blasio partly agrees with that interpretation of events, saying, “I was struck by [Cuomo’s] unwillingness to tax the wealthy, and I felt he was not willing to challenge some powerful interests in this state.” However, de Blasio added that the deeper issue was Cuomo’s support for the IDC and the Republicans, saying Cuomo broke “the promise he made to help us win a Democratic State Senate and over the years, he aided and abetted the IDC and the Republicans, and that to me was a real breaking point.” ...

In fact Andrew Cuomo isn’t just beholden to rich people; he’s outright been bought. The matter of LLCs came up a lot during the primary against Nixon—in New York State, LLCs are a method that corporate entities use to launder their campaign contributions, somewhat like Super PACs. New York Magazine states that “Cuomo rakes in money from corporate, hedge fund, and real estate interests,” and quotes a “Cuomo insider,” who said, “‘… The governor is acutely aware that it’s not just about the dollars to spend. It’s the perception. ‘You want to run against me? You better be prepared.’ And it says to the world, ‘I have access to really deep pockets.’’” During the primary, Cynthia Nixon refused to raise money from LLCs, and lost the election to her better-funded opponent. Andrew Cuomo takes money from rich people, sneers at principled rivals, says taxes on rich people aren’t politically possible, and then implements left policies only if he can get rich people to approve them first. What a progressive hero. ...

The list ends with this cheery set of quotes:

Andrew Cuomo is an asshole. Here is a list of things people have said about Andrew Cuomo in profile pieces ranging from the sympathetic to the fawning to the respectfully critical at worst:

• “What comes up most in talking about Cuomo is how people hate him.” The Atlantic
• “The differences between the Cuomos are huge: Mario would blow up in a rage, while Andrew tends to bide his time for revenge…” The Atlantic
• “Even when there is good news, Cuomo’s scheming breeds suspicion from reporters, activists, and other politicians.” The Atlantic
• “‘Is he a son of a bitch at times? Yeah.’” New York Magazine (2014 profile)
• “And when he’s criticized, his first reaction—often deployed through surrogates or staffers—is to belittle or intimidate.” New York Magazine
• “‘Andrew is vindictive,’ a Democratic strategist says. ‘He wants to punish people. And he gets joy out of that.’” New York Magazine
• “…a hands-on manager who prefers vise-grip control…” Politico
• “One Northeast-based political consultant, a longtime fixture at the National Governors Association event, says he remembers meetings in previous years when Cuomo entered and exited sessions without a word to anyone. When Cuomo does publicly interact with other governors, the events are often carefully timed and monitored on his own home turf.” Politico
• “…a governor who finds it distasteful to interact with the unpredictable masses and his fellow politicians…” Politico
• “It’s sometimes said of certain politicians that they love humanity but hate people; Andrew Cuomo does not appear especially fond of either. He is the uncommon elected official with a streak of misanthropy. Cuomo rarely sees ordinary people, and they rarely see him, except in television commercials. ‘Andrew doesn’t like meeting with voters,’ someone who is familiar with his campaigns told me. ‘He’ll do parades, but that’s about it.’” The New Yorker

And he's also corrupt. (See here and here as well.)

Andrew Cuomo — Collecting the Worst of What Democratic Leaders Could Offer into One Media-Made Candidate

There you have it, or some part of it — there's actually a whole lot more.

If you're looking for a Biden replacement who isn't Sanders, hasn't received a single vote in the primary, is as vindictive as Trump and twice as controlling (and effective), Andrew Cuomo is happy to have your support.

And if the DNC, God forbid, actually does swap out Biden for Cuomo, God help us all, whether he wins or loses.