Cuomo taking his budget plan to the people

ALBANY -- Seeking to push through the first state spending cuts in 15 years, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is plying a new tactic -- he's taking his case directly to voters, going over the heads of lawmakers and avoiding the cameras' glare at the Capitol.

More so than his recent predecessors, he's regularly getting out of Albany, crisscrossing the state to make campaign-style stump speeches on the budget. Just in the past six weeks, Cuomo has appeared in Hempstead, Patchogue, Westchester, the Buffalo suburbs, Binghamton, Staten Island and Rochester. He has launched a Facebook page and has deployed Lt. Gov. Robert J. Duffy to Utica, Plattsburgh and Syracuse.

Between Feb. 1 and March 15, Cuomo appeared at just one budget-related event in Albany.

The governor's strategy is to take his message "outside of Albany," aides said, appealing more to people than to politicians. "You're not going to get the people involved unless you talk to them directly," said Andrew Zambelli, counselor to the governor. "You've got to get out of the Capitol."

Shrewd tactic, some say

It's an approach being used to similar degrees by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and, lately, by President Barack Obama.

The tactic allows Cuomo to have more control of the political agenda, experts said. He avoids negotiating through the media and defending esoteric budget details. Polls show Cuomo's approval rating at 77 percent -- better than any governor in recent memory at this point in his term -- and general support for his budget.

"Defining the conversation is the name of the game here," said Gerald Benjamin, a political science professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

"It's classic to go to the hustings and bypass the Capitol," Benjamin said. "It's not a new story but, in [Cuomo's] case, it is a well-executed and disciplined approach."

Offsets criticism on cuts

Cuomo has proposed a $132.9-billion budget for 2011-12 that would trim spending by $3.7 billion from the current fiscal year. He's proposed cuts to the budget's biggest items -- school aid and Medicaid -- and vowed to kill the "millionaires' tax," an income-tax surcharge on high-earning New Yorkers initiated during the stock market crisis and set to expire Dec. 31.

Traditionally, proposals to cut Medicaid and school aid have sparked all-out advertising wars from unions, hospitals and other groups. But Cuomo and his allies have so far defused attacks with their own ads -- and through co-opting hospitals and unions by including them on a Medicaid "redesign team."

"They've prevented the so-called air war. At the same time, they are taking the message around the state, where the governor commands the headlines," Benjamin said. "They are defining discourse in the districts and neutralizing the opposition in Albany."

Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg described Cuomo's efforts as "a full-court press, orchestrated within government and outside of government. That is something I've not seen my lifetime from any governor of New York."

Fewer media appearances

Meantime, Cuomo has passed up numerous media opportunities in Albany.

After delivering his budget address on Feb. 1, he skipped a post-speech news conference, leaving it to his budget director. He has not publicly sworn in a cabinet member since late January, even though several have won Senate confirmation. He chose to announce a proposal to overhaul the redistricting process via news release.

To be sure, the governor has been active at the Capitol, phoning and meeting with legislators about the budget and ethics legislation and recently hosting advocates of same-sex marriage. But with the April 1 budget deadline looming, little is going on in front of the cameras.

"Sometimes, it's best not to negotiate in public," said Douglas Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College. "If you are doing regular press conferences, [reporters] are going to ask questions that demand judgments, and those judgments could impact negotiations."

But the "going-to-the-people approach" also has the feel, Muzzio said, of a "permanent campaign" to solve the biggest legislative issue: the state budget.

"He should go out and meet constituents around New York," Muzzio said. "But this is also the permanent campaign. The meetings, the speeches, the videos . . . it's got the feel of political campaign."