Sleepwalking into disaster
By 
Andrew Cuomo believes in one and only one thing other than himself: Republicans should have a veto over policy in Democratic jurisdictions. When he was governor, he worked hard to ensure that it was the state Senate. If he becomes mayor, he’ll just play the part himself:
That message has resonated. Less than two months until the Democratic primary, Cuomo holds a substantial polling lead over his myriad opponents, who are struggling to break through against a front-runner whose name recognition is so superior that he’s acting as if he is running unopposed. At the same time, Cuomo has relentlessly pushed a dystopian (and quite Trumpian) vision of a city in chaos—caused by rampant crime, homelessness, an influx of immigrants, and even e-bikes—and presented himself as the lone solution, given that he has experience that his rivals can’t match.
Ever since he was elected state attorney general in 2006 and especially during his nearly decade-long stint as governor, Cuomo has cultivated an image of himself as someone uniquely adept at managing complex bureaucracies and messy politics. For Cuomo and the slavish aides who surround him, no one is better at the arm twisting—and dark arts—that are required to get anything done in a state as notoriously dysfunctional as New York. In truth, that’s a myth Cuomo himself created. He is not a cunning dealmaker, skilled manager, or inspiring leader—but he is masterful at selling himself as all of the above. As Democrats slowly mount a resistance against Trump’s second administration, there is no worse person to elevate than a shameless self-promoter with an inflated sense of his political gifts and accomplishments.
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When examined closely, Cuomo’s record of competence is similarly less impressive. As Politico’s Nick Riesman wrote in a damning account of the governor’s long record of mismanagement in late April, “His team has asserted his consistent polling advantage is based on his reputation as an effective manager, but as he vies to oversee the nation’s largest school district, trash collection operation and police force, he is glossing over his mistakes and betting voters won’t remember.” Some of the infrastructure projects Cuomo presided over were far less impressive than they seem. The Mario Cuomo bridge was plagued by issues—bolts were reportedly flying off it around the same time its namesake’s son celebrated its completion.
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Since Cuomo resigned from office, his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic—once thought to be one of his major accomplishments—has been exposed as a sham. It was revealed that he had ordered aides to work on a memoir celebrating his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic while they were supposed to be doing government work—like helping to fight the pandemic, which was still raging. And he was accused of covering up nursing home deaths during the pandemic. (Republicans on the House Oversight Committee recently referred Cuomo to the Department of Justice for prosecution relating to allegedly false statements he made to Congress on the subject. It’s a political move, no doubt, but the committee’s investigation was not without merit.)
And yet, despite this damning record, Cuomo is on the precipice of returning to power. This would be depressing even if Kamala Harris had triumphed over Donald Trump in November. With Trump in the White House, it’s potentially disastrous. Like the president, Cuomo is an incompetent politician, a malicious bully, and an inveterate braggart. He will cast himself as a foil to the president and a leader of his party, just as he did as governor. But we know the whole truth about him now. There’s no excuse for letting this political cretin rise again.
Cuomo is running the Guiliani playbook politically, and like Giuliani he’s getting a major political boost from having been in power during a crisis and the resulting fawning media coverage, despite the fact that their actual preperation and/or management of the crisis was largely inept in substance.
Voting for Cuomo out of nostalgia for 2019 will work out about as well for NYC as electing Trump for that reason will work out for the US.