White House seems to give Cuomo cover to go for governor
Photo credit: Howard Schnapp | Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. (May 2008)
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The White House's stunning "stand-down" message to Gov. David A. Paterson seems to give Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just the cover he needs to chase the state's top post.
For Democratic players reluctant to be seen as dumping the state's first African-American governor - but who say that Paterson would sink the 2010 ticket - the recent question has been how to move him aside.
The answer seems to reside with the first African-American president, Barack Obama - with U.S. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-Queens) as go-between - practically inviting Cuomo to jump in by tilting against Paterson.
Forget the Obama crew's public efforts Sunday to insulate the president from the fray, and the governor's response that he will run anyway.
The drama has moved past that, party sources say.
The questions now become when and where labor unions, fundraisers and community leaders with influence in the party move in defiance of the state's putative top Democrat.
And, this: Just how long and intense might an internal Democratic contest prove to be?
Still fresh to his role as the nation's top Democrat, Obama owes nothing to Cuomo or Paterson. Both New Yorkers stood behind home-state Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton against Obama through last year's primaries.
Obama's political operatives seem to have little use for Paterson. He passed up Obama backer Caroline Kennedy for senator. Then he put the president in an awkward spot by suggesting both of them face a kind of racial double standard. It led David Dinkins, who served one term as New York City's first black mayor, to say that Paterson shouldn't be doing that.
When the governor announced Richard Fife as his campaign manager last week - as if to underscore his intent to run - he noted the latter's work for Obama.
Little of this would matter if not for Paterson's scary-low poll numbers and his proven flair for the unpredictable. Next year's statewide elections promise extra impact: They will influence which party controls redistricting for congressional and legislative seats.
Cuomo's own past included a public fight involving housing issues with Rahm Emanuel, during the Clinton administration, and a truncated primary race in 2002 against H. Carl McCall, New York's first African-American major-party nominee for governor.
But the significance of all that fades in this world of what-have-you-done-for-me-this-minute - especially given the attorney general's strong poll numbers in the state, which show that he could fend off Republican celebrity Rudy Giuliani.
Republicans have been saying for months they expect to face Cuomo in the governor's race. Cuomo is the only statewide elected official other than U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, also up in 2010, to have won his current post at the polls.
Should he come to take on Paterson, Cuomo - or any other candidate - might wish to use as a campaign song Dr. John's "Such a Night," with its refrain, "If I don't do it, somebody else will . . ."
