Business council, GOP county exec endorse Cuomo

EAST SYRACUSE - In what he called a "pivotal moment" in the race for governor, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was endorsed Wednesday by the Business Council of New York State and Onandaga County's Republican county executive Joanie Mahoney.

The Democratic hopeful's endorsements came a week after opponent Carl Paladino's confrontation with a New York Post reporter at an upstate gathering where Paladino addressed the same business group.

But council president Kenneth Adams dismissed last week's episode, saying Cuomo won his support through a "truly compelling and thoughtful plan for jobs and economic recovery.

"The Paladino campaign hasn't done anything nearly as specific and doesn't provide the same level of strategy," Adams said at the announcement at a plant where milk is ultra-pasteurized and packaged.

"Steamrollers didn't work in Albany," Adams said in a reference to a phrase former Gov. Eliot Spitzer once used to describe himself. "Baseball bats won't work either."

The Paladino campaign dismissed the endorsement, noting the group was made up not only of small business leaders but also "big business lobbyists, trade associations and other Albany insiders." Later, in another statement, the campaign said the endorsement of Cuomo was "like asking the Boston Strangler to massage your neck."

But Desmond Ryan, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island, said the group was an important voice and one more philosophically aligned with businessman Paladino. Ryan was present for Paladino's address to the council at the Sagamore Hotel last week, at which Paladino suggested that if business leaders wanted to keep unions in control they should elect "the prince," as Paladino refers to Cuomo.

"You could have heard a pin drop; he got a standing ovation," Ryan recalled. So the group's endorsement is a "practical political decision" to position themselves for Cuomo's likely victory, Ryan said. "This race is over. I hate to say it," Ryan said.

The nod from Mahoney, a prominent upstate Republican official, marks another inroad by the Cuomo campaign into a region Paladino had claimed as his own.

"From what I've heard from Andrew Cuomo, I think he's the best hope for moving this state forward," said Mahoney. "People are scared of partisan politics. They want people to put together solutions."