Mario Cuomo

In order for his proposal to extend term limits to become law, Michael Bloomberg needs the support of 26 members of the City Council. At the moment, only 14 members are on record saying they will vote in favor of the bill. Five of the undecideds—Alan Gerson, Jessica Lappin, James Oddo, Helen Sears, and Peter Vallone Jr.—have been participating in this week's marathon term-limits hearings at City Hall.

Most of them claim to be hesitant to support the bill out of concern about the legal principle involved, although it seems more likely than not that the bill could stand up to legal challenges.  read more »

Another dispatch from the term-limits hearing, by intern Glenna Goldis:

Mario Cuomo was the first person to testify at the hearing on the City Council's term-limits legislation.

"The way they did it in my case was perfect," he said, referring to the voters' ouster of him in 1993 by general election.

He added later, "Anything that perpetuates term limits is not a good thing."

Councilman Simcha Felder, who presided over the hearing in the Council chamber, opened the proceedings by allowing the sponsors of an anti-extension bill to speak in alphabetical order. Cuomo testified after those brief statements.

At one point, Councilman Charles Barron challenged Cuomo, arguing that term limits had created the most progressive council in memory and that Bloomberg "robbed the poor to give to the rich.

 read more »

The New York Sun published a story today that quoted ex-politicians and a few semi-retired journalists saying that it would be a terrible thing if the newspaper closed later this month. In his first public interview since resigning, Eliot Spitzer says, "The Sun has been a spectacular addition to the city's political discourse and is one of the finest papers in terms of editing, writing, and analysis that one can find anywhere." (The Sun was one of the few outlets sympathetic towards Mr. Spitzer when he found himself engulfed in scandal in March.)

Also quoted:

• Mario Cuomo
• George Pataki
• John Bolton, former American ambassador to the UN
• Philippe de Montebello, the outgoing director of Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Peter Kann, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal
• Sir Harold Evans, former editor of The London Times
• Peter Osnos, former editor at The Washington Post
• Nat Hentoff, columnist for Village Voice

The paper still, however, needs to find money.  read more »

With the final speaking schedule for Thursday released, the gubernatorial tally is in: David Paterson was one 15 governors to land a slot at the podium at the Democratic convention this week.

There are 28 Democratic governors in the country, so that puts Paterson in the majority. His time slot (around 3:45 M.S.T Tuesday) was earlier than all but one of them (Governor Chet Culver of swing-state Iowa).

New York is of course no swing state, but there's a long tradition of governors speaking at the national political conventions.

Had Paterson not been given a speaking slot—and the Daily News reported earlier this month that the D.  read more »

Mario Cuomo, for one, can envision a scenario in which Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates, states won and total votes—and emerges from the convention as a nominee for vice president.

The superdelegates, he said, could realistically make up for "any number” of elected delegates supporting Obama.

“That's what the superdelegates were designed for,” Cuomo, who is officially neutral, said in a phone interview. “If 100 percent of the delegates had voted the other way, and they thought it was the wrong candidate, they wouldn't have to follow it."  read more »

Larry Levy thinks there's a limit to what can be learned from all the Bloomberg '08 news stories.

"Even if you had a source saying Michael Bloomberg said he is running, the best thing you have is a source saying that Bloomberg has said he is running," the former Newsday columnist told me yesterday.

"That doesn’t necessarily mean he is actually going to do it," added Levy, who is now the head of Hofstra's Center for Suburban Studies.

He recalled another New Yorker who flirted with running for president:  read more »

Once again last week Al Gore stepped back into the news in a big way. Once again pundits speculated that it might signal an impending presidential candidacy. And once again, nothing came of it.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg will speak with Tom Brokaw in an installment of the Cooper Union discussions which have already featured presidential candidate John Edwards and presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich.

According to the advisory announcing the Sept. 25 event, which will be hosted by Mario Cuomo, the talk "will focus on finding solutions to the national challenges of education, poverty and the environment."

Cuomo has said the discussions - each usually an hour long - are a venue for detailed answers to the questions and issues facing national leaders, who often don't have the opportunity to get into the nitty-gritty aspects of policy while campaigning.

In an earlier interview in the Observer, Cuomo suggested that Bloomberg could yet have a big influence in the 2008 race for the White House, particularly if he chooses to criticize Rudy Giuliani. Could this be an opportunity for Cuomo to bring about a moment that would put that proposition to the test?

Many Democrats these days are thrilled, even to the point of smugness, about the state of their field of presidential candidates. Not Mario Cuomo.  read more »

I just got off the phone with Mario Cuomo, who is preparing for his "dialogue"
with John Edwards this Thursday at Cooper Union. It's part of an ongoing series of presidential candidates going one-on-one with the former governor.

After they speak, each will field questions from WNYC host Brian Lehrer.

Among the questions Cuomo told me he wants to ask Edwards is, “What is the best thing you can achieve by bombing Iran? What is the worst thing you can produce by bombing Iran?”

Also, referring to the constitutional question of congress having the right to exercise discretion over the congress's discretion over declarations of war: “Do you pledge... in picking Supreme Court justices, to ask how they feel about the war
powers and this notion about a political question?”

And though I should have known better, I asked him if he planned to touch on the topic of John Edwards' $400 haircut. His answer:

“Azi, with the kind of questions I’ve just thought up, you want me to talk about haircuts? The haircuts is a question is for the press: you can have fun with it, you can put a big picture up, you can have YouTube do something. It's entertainment. We‘re straining to get some of them to answer our questions. Nobody writes about them. Thank goodness you called. Nobody writes about them.”

Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui mailed out a disturbing video to NBC News in which he says things like, "You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience."

Reactions to the late-term-partial-birth abortion ban from the 2008 candidates was quick and broke along party lines.

Hillary Clinton's favorable ratings sunk in a USA Today/Gallup survey.

John Edwards may be having lunch with Mario Cuomo today.  read more »

Pity upper-middle-class Manhattanites.  read more »

Jay Kennedy Remembered   To the Editor:    read more »

Jay Kennedy Remembered   To the Editor:    read more »

Another group opposing Eliot Spitzer's health care plan is contacting voters in bulk.

Spitzer criticized the state Senate's spending plan for health care.

The IRS is looking into whether there was some "misinterpretation by some state legislators" on how to account for certain work-related expenses.

There are still seats left for a fund-raiser featuring Bill Clinton on March 18.

Mario Cuomo will give the opening remarks at a DMI conference about the middle class on April 2.

A writer on Urban Elephants wonders if Rudy Giuliani would grab more executive power than George W. Bush.

A committee in the Council Council voted to ban metal bats for high school sports.

The state legislature is missing some information about legislation introduced in 2005.

And above is a picture of City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who criticized the Department of Education at a conference today with Schools Chancellor Joel Klein looking on.

-- Azi Paybarah

He’s still got it, Mario Cuomo. Remember him?    read more »

On the night of Sept.  read more »

So last night Andrew Cuomo held a party at his headquarters at 1740 Broadway to say thank you to his volunteers and supporters. It was an informal potato chip and pretzel affair, but with two full bars to keep the festivities moving.

According to a Cuomo staffer at the party, Cuomo expressed his gratitude to his early supporters, and recognized that their backing was no small thing considering his 2002 misadventure. He singled out the support of Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, and said, according to the staffer, that the "easier" thing to do at the time would have been to sit out the race or back a different horse.

Mario Cuomo picked up on the theme and emphasized that he knew a thing or two about people sticking their neck out for him early. In 1982, he recalled, support was heavily lined up behind Ed Koch.

We'll see how Cuomo interacts with those officials who, like the governor-elect, waited until later in the game to endorse him.

--Jason Horowitz

The worst thing that happened to Eliot Spitzer’s gubernatorial campaign was getting caught in the  read more »

The worst thing that happened to Eliot Spitzer’s gubernatorial campaign was getting caught in  read more »

Steve Kornacki talked to Rudy Giuliani up in NH yesterday and sent along this email:

Rudy Giuliani used his speech at a fund-raiser for NH state House Republican candidates to tout the importance of electing GOP candidates up and down the ballot and the party's general superiority on every issue imaginable. So I asked him if he still thinks Mario Cuomo would make a better governor than George Pataki:

Giuliani's response:

"It's so long ago, I can't even remember it. George Pataki turned out to be a terrific governor and a good friend. Hindsight always makes things easier, and I guess that's kind of the point I was making about even more serious issues like North Korea, September 11, and even yesterday. But I said this before: George Pataki turned out to be a really good governor. If I had known that beforehand, I probably could have made a different decision. I didn't. With the facts I had available then, that was the right decision, I thought, for the city and the state."

-- Azi Paybarah

What better epilogue to the "new, upbeat Andrew Cuomo" story than the scene at his victory party last night:

As two jumbo screens projected Andrew Cuomo as winner on opposite sides of a Sheraton ballroom, Mario Cuomo walked around the round tables accepting hugs and kisses from former colleagues and donors. Enthusiasm built in anticipation of the victor's arrival.

Eventually, Charlie King and Christine Quinn shushed the crowd and introduced Cuomo, to furious applause. An enormous smile spread across his face and his fist pumped in the air. He introduced his family, nuclear and extended, and, being the new Andrew Cuomo, thanked Mark Green.

"I want to applaud Mark Green," said Mr. Cuomo. "He called me, he endorsed me, he was gracious. He ran a very very strong campaign, he made me a better candidate and I look forward to working with him."

He thanked his campaign workers and Jennifer Cunningham, "whose birthday is tomorrow," and who stood elated in the back of the room, putting down her tumbler to clap.

Mr. Cuomo then went on the offensive, attacking "the reign of the two Georges" referring to Bush and Pataki, and announcing that "we will not replace Eliot Spitzer with their handpicked candidate Jeanine Pirro. Period."

Mr. Cuomo's speech built to a crescendo, he called himself the "comeback candidate" and the crowd cheered some more. It was the perfect punctuation to his campaign. Except it wasn't the end. Strangely, Alan Hevesi was called to the podium. ("I was just saying to Andrew Cuomo how much Andrew sounds like Matilda," he said.) Then Bill Thompson spoke. Then Christine Quinn. Again. Cuomo's smile turned back to an old fashioned glare as excitement seeped from the room. Finally the band struck up some departing music and the smile returned to Cuomo's face as supporters rushed forward to shake his hand.

--Jason Horowitz

Sheldon Silver supports moving the primaries away from Sept. 11 and holding them in June. Jerry Skunik notes it was Gov. Carey who initially moved the primaries to September in order to help Mario Cuomo (and to a lesser extent, Ed Koch) in the mayor's race.

200,000 voters were sent to the wrong polling place today because of outdated information mailed to them from the city's Board of Elections.

Newsday wonders if Tom Suozzi will endorse Eliot Spitzer tonight, or just support him.

The Journal News gets a sad phone call:

I was stunned to get a phone call this evening from a woman asking me for the name of the Republican running for governor. I even had to spell it out for her.

When she asked me the name of the Republican running for AG, I asked her if it was a prank call.

It wasn't.

The New York Times unloaded some television stations it owned.

Joe Lieberman leads Ned Lamont 51 to 38 in a new poll.

NJ Senator Bob Menendez unveiled a new television ad attacking Bush on port security.  read more »

And pictured above is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who visited Ground Zero yesterday while the names of WTC victims were read.

-- Azi Paybarah

The late humorist Fred Allen wasn’t thinking of Albany when he entitled his memoirs Treadmill to O  read more »

The late humorist Fred Allen wasn’t thinking of Albany when he entitled his memoirs Treadmill  read more »

In a colorful e-mail to one ABC News colleague, Chris Cuomo—son of Mario, brother of Andrew; he of  read more »

In a colorful e-mail to one ABC News colleague, Chris Cuomo—son of Mario, brother of Andrew; h  read more »

The Palm Jumeirah, an artificial cluster of islands shaped like a date palm tree off the coast of Du  read more »

Mark Green says he's "been told" that the much anticipated Eliot Spitzer endorsement in the race for Attorney General isn't going to happen.

Here's what he said in a phone interview this afternoon:

"I've been told that Eliot will stay neutral in the '06 AG primary, just as Mario did at the head of the ticket in 1986. Mario Cuomo stayed neutral in the U.S. Senate primary between John Dyson and me. "I'm confident that he will stay neutral and run with whoever wins September 12 based on the precedent of Mario Cuomo himself in 1986."

—Nicole Brydson

George Pataki: Too Little, Too Late  read more »

George Pataki: Too Little, Too Late    read more »

More interesting than anything Tom Suozzi said at a Crain's breakfast this morning, I'm told, were a couple of the faces in the audience.

First, there was Mario Cuomo, who doesn't often show up at this sort of thing.

Also at the table of former Cuomo aide and lobbyist Tonio Burgos was Eliot's policy guy, Paul Francis. Scribbling busily, a source notes. So much for ignoring the guy.

The Observer's tape recorder ran out before Andrew got up to speak at the Stonewall Democratic Club (blame Alan Hevesi!), so I asked the Times's Pat Healy for his transcript of the event, and he kindly obliged. The controversy is over whether Andrew Cuomo denied that anti-gay Koch fliers ever existed, or simply denied that he had a role in them. Our reporter, and a lot of other people, left with the former impression. Healy's interpretation, in the paper today, was the latter. The transcript is ambiguous, but Cuomo apparently clarified it to him immediately after speaking.

Here's Healy's transcript, which he notes he gave me as a professional courtesy (a courteous guy, Healy), and not at the request of any campaign:

Q: Now that this campaign is heating up, old stuff is cropping up. One of the ones we're hearing a lot these days on blogs and in whispering campaigns are about the posters that popped up during your father's campaign against Ed Koch, which read "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo." Fairly or not, a lot of the times you are described as a driving force behind this postering campaign, which we know did happen. I just was wondering here, today, at the community center, if you once and for all disavow any involvement on your part with this postering campaign, and if you say - if you catch anybody in your campaign involved in that kind, what would be the consequences?

Cuomo: May I ask you something?

(Man nods.)

Cuomo: "When you said that you know that it happened, how do you know that happened?"

Q:"It's been written about in a lot of books, it was in Jack Newfield's books, the one that just came out, Ladies and Gentleman the Bronx is Burning—"

Cuomo: "Jack Newfield said that it had anything to do with the Cuomo campaign?"

Q:"Uh, I don't know—"

Cuomo: "Ok. He didn't. Anyway. In 1977 Mario Cuomo ran against Ed Koch. That was one of the rumors that came out of the campaign, which is now folklore. It was an ugly cheap rumor then; it's a more ugly cheap untrue rumor today. And the previous question, when we talked about negativity in campaigns, let Mark Green say he's better. Let Sean Patrick say he's better. But rumors, gossip, untruth about other people is not positive, and it re-enforces stereotypes. It's just not true."  read more »

Pat adds:

"After Mr. Cuomo finished, I told him in an interview that his wording was muddled and asked him to clarify - was he saying the posters did not exist at all, or was he saying that a connection between him and the posters did not exist? He told me he was saying the connection between him and the posters did not exist, saying that was the point on his mind because it was the point raised, and noting his question back to the man about whether Jack Newfield reported a link between the posters and the Cuomo campaign. Mr. Cuomo then told me that the posters themselves were 'disgusting' and added, 'I condemn them.'"

So the question in the Attorney General primary has been which candidate would take the first direct, on-record whack at Andrew Cuomo.

And the answer is...Mark Green.

In an email to supporters today, the campaign forwards a note from his new consultant, Hank Sheinkopf.

Excerpts:

"On the merits, Mark is head and shoulders better qualified than Andrew Cuomo.... If "the best rationale wins," as Mario Cuomo always said, then on the merits Mark's a winner...

"Andrew Cuomo does have a modest head start in polls, almost entirely because of his last name recognition upstate...but then he also had that same head start in 2002 before quitting once voters began paying attention.  read more »

"Last week's Quinnipiac Poll, showing both Mark and Andy defeating Jeanine Pirro, was interesting in this context. Among Democrats statewide, which is our "primary" concern, Mark had a 33% favorable vs. a 9% unfavorable, for a 24 percentage point net favorable -- while Andy had a 31% vs. 14% unfavorable, for a 17 percentage point net favorable. So where people know both, Mark's measurably more appealing."

"Andy." Just like old times.

The Albany Times Union's Capitol staff is up with a new blog, which I imagine will become a must-read up there in about five minutes, based on its bloggy Capitol Confidential column.

It includes such tidbits as Pataki including $500,000 in his proposed budget to help the next governor pay for transition costs, a consideration Mario Cuomo unaccountably didn't afford George.  read more »

Now if we can only get Dicker blogging...

George Pataki’s shelf life as Governor expires in less than a year.  read more »

George Pataki’s shelf life as Governor expires in less than a year.  read more »

New York’s Mayor doesn’t “do” anger very well.  read more »

New York’s Mayor doesn’t “do” anger very well.    read more »

Since his early withdrawal from the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Andrew Cuomo has been reaching out  read more »

Since his early withdrawal from the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Andrew Cuomo has been reaching out  read more »

Hail Hillary Clinton! Praise Jeanine Pirro!  read more »

One Democrat reports getting an interesting polling call from in Manhattan Saturday, one that provides a glimpse into somebody's strategy in the 2006 Senate race.

The poll was at least testing the responses to a Hillary vow not to seek the presidency. (Eat your heart out, John Podhoretz.)

The pollster didn't identify a client, but the poll included fairly in-depth "message-testing," as it's known, into three aspects of the likely Clinton-Pirro match-up: Pirro's selling points, Pirro's negatives, and -- most suggestive -- how Hillary should be responding to questions for her plans for 2008.

According to the detailed, but possibly imperfect, recounting of the poll provided to the Politicker, the pollster asked how the respondent felt about Hillary's not serving a full term, then tested at least three possible responses to the notion that Clinton's presidential aspirations make her unfit to win reelection from New York:

-She's part of a "great tradition" of officials who won't rule out a presidential run, one that includes Bobby Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, and John Kerry.

-It's good for New York to have a New York Senator with a national presence.

-She should vow not to run.

The Pirro message-testing was less provocative. There were a series of question about which element of her record is most appealing: Stopping gangs? Fighting domestic violence? Advocating for abused children?  read more »

There were also a series of possible attacks, none of which mentioned her husband, Al. One, however, did focus on "integrity" and mentioned her tax problems. Another line was that she has "no substance." Another was that she's running for personal advancement.

A Clinton spokesman declined to comment on whether the call came from Clinton pollster Mark Penn. A Pirro spokesman didn't return a call asking if it was her poll. The person who got the poll, a politically sophisticated type whose guess is probably better than mine, felt fairly confident it was from Clinton. But that's only an educated guess.

The recent debates among the four Democratic Mayoral candidates proved without question that the rea  read more »

Another day, another New York Post attack on George Pataki. No, not the reports of the governor's private phone conversations that've been hammered onto the frontpage of the tabloid two days in a row.

Now Pataki finds himself under attack in the paper's Lifestyle section. That's right: The governor's not even safe in The Post's doughy middle section.  read more »

From Mr. Nice Guy, Sara Stewart's hard-hitting look at Michael Showalter's indie film, The Baxter:

Look around any New York restaurant, and you can spot one: He's the straight-laced, nice-guy type with the slightly bored-looking date. [...] "Baxters overdo it," says Showalter. "The Baxter is the guy who's going to take a girl to the best restaurant in town, having no clue if it's appropriate for her. All that matters is, it's the best. Anything recommended as the most romantic place, that's where you'll find the Baxter." [...] "George Pataki is a Baxter, no question," Showalter says. "But Mario Cuomo is not a Baxter."

Next week in The Post: Pataki gets the Meet Market treatment. —Matt Haber

Morgy is set to announce Mario Cuomo's endorsement later today, and we have the feeling this isn't going to brighten Leslie Snyder's day.

"On the record, on values, and on the death penalty there is a crucial difference between Mr. Morgenthau and his opponent in this race."  read more »

Not only does this step on her campaign announcement, it hits her on what has to be her weakest issue in Manhattan.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of  read more »

The late humorist Fred Allen wasn't thinking of Albany when he entitled his memoirs Treadmill to Obl  read more »