livingston
20×102mm Vulcan
Andrew Cuomo’s Case for 2020—No, Really
The New York governor keeps dithering, but can’t stop thinking about running for president
NEW YORK—Here’s how Andrew Cuomo ends our first interview at the beginning of January, sitting in a chair in his office, after eating cookie No. 4 from the tray his staff prepared. I put a simple question to him: “Would you like to be president?” He dodges it over and over by talking about how much he wants to do his job as governor well. Finally he says, Well, Joe Biden is running anyway.
A lot of people think Biden is going to run, I acknowledge, and the former vice president certainly seems to be moving in that direction. But Biden looked like he was about to run in 2015 too, only to end speculation at the last minute. So: What if he doesn’t?
“Call me back,” Cuomo says, and puts his hand out immediately to shake, ending a conversation that lasted through a bathroom break and a theatrical phone call with his daughter, in which he begged her not to try cooking him dinner because she’d make too much of a mess of the pots.
Read: Andrew Cuomo sealed his victory with one last power move
A Cuomo interview is a manic chess game. It’s hard not to feel his hand trying to guide every move, constantly recalculating and recalibrating, and going off the record to embellish a point or ingratiate himself. It’s also hard not to feel his actual hand: Sort of for emphasis and sort of for dominance, he’ll grab a foot or knee, quickly lean forward with his big body, and stare until he’s not the one who breaks. He never wants to be the one who breaks.
Cuomo doesn’t do much reflecting on himself, especially in public. But in two long interviews in person, and over the phone, on the record and off, we spent well over five hours talking about why he thinks so many Democrats hate him, the psychodrama that gets read into every mention of his father, and what he thinks Nancy Pelosi and others in Washington have to learn from him. At one point, he even started drafting on the fly what he’d want in his own eulogy.
Cuomo can be irritating, confounding, and egotistical. He can also be engaging, intense, and charismatic. He deliberately stands apart from the leftward tilt of his party, but his record of bills signed into law on many core progressive issues is unmatched by any other Democrat, in D.C. or the states, with the possible exception of Jerry Brown. He wins in landslides, but most politicians in New York and beyond can’t stand him.
More at ...
Andrew Cuomo’s Case for 2020—No, Really
The New York governor keeps dithering, but can’t stop thinking about running for president
NEW YORK—Here’s how Andrew Cuomo ends our first interview at the beginning of January, sitting in a chair in his office, after eating cookie No. 4 from the tray his staff prepared. I put a simple question to him: “Would you like to be president?” He dodges it over and over by talking about how much he wants to do his job as governor well. Finally he says, Well, Joe Biden is running anyway.
A lot of people think Biden is going to run, I acknowledge, and the former vice president certainly seems to be moving in that direction. But Biden looked like he was about to run in 2015 too, only to end speculation at the last minute. So: What if he doesn’t?
“Call me back,” Cuomo says, and puts his hand out immediately to shake, ending a conversation that lasted through a bathroom break and a theatrical phone call with his daughter, in which he begged her not to try cooking him dinner because she’d make too much of a mess of the pots.
Read: Andrew Cuomo sealed his victory with one last power move
A Cuomo interview is a manic chess game. It’s hard not to feel his hand trying to guide every move, constantly recalculating and recalibrating, and going off the record to embellish a point or ingratiate himself. It’s also hard not to feel his actual hand: Sort of for emphasis and sort of for dominance, he’ll grab a foot or knee, quickly lean forward with his big body, and stare until he’s not the one who breaks. He never wants to be the one who breaks.
Cuomo doesn’t do much reflecting on himself, especially in public. But in two long interviews in person, and over the phone, on the record and off, we spent well over five hours talking about why he thinks so many Democrats hate him, the psychodrama that gets read into every mention of his father, and what he thinks Nancy Pelosi and others in Washington have to learn from him. At one point, he even started drafting on the fly what he’d want in his own eulogy.
Cuomo can be irritating, confounding, and egotistical. He can also be engaging, intense, and charismatic. He deliberately stands apart from the leftward tilt of his party, but his record of bills signed into law on many core progressive issues is unmatched by any other Democrat, in D.C. or the states, with the possible exception of Jerry Brown. He wins in landslides, but most politicians in New York and beyond can’t stand him.
More at ...
Andrew Cuomo’s Case for 2020—No, Really
