Cuomo for prez in '16? Wait a minute

Let's take a deep breath before this gets out of hand, which it surely will.

Andrew M. Cuomo reaches the six-month mark as New York governor tomorrow. As widely reported in recent days, he showed strength in pushing his legislative agenda, certainly by Albany standards, and drew national attention for the new same-sex-marriage law.

News protocols being what they are, it was just a matter of time before someone hoisted the notion of his running for president in 2016. It offers, after all, the highest potential yield of any simple question the press could toss out.

Sensibly, Cuomo called 2016 discussion "silly." Naturally, he refused to rule out what he'd do in the distant future. And then, of course, the news reports accurately said he "left the door open," which, in turn, tells us nearly nothing new.

A prominent New York consultant who declined to be identified -- and is not from Cuomo's circle -- said of the governor's statements: "That's 100 percent what I'd say. There is no other answer to the question."

In addition, having a newspaper report that Cuomo was ordering aides not to take part in such discussions "was doubly brilliant," the consultant said.

Others were recalling how everything old becomes new, given the legendary presidential musings of former Gov. Mario Cuomo in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He never did run.

Again and again, we see presidential speculation bless its subject with risk-free publicity. Ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, former Gov. George Pataki, even Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford). How bad can it be to have people talk about you like that?

The last Democratic governor of New York elected by a landslide (Eliot Spitzer, 2006) was deemed a "rising star" in the national party while still the state's attorney general. "He was an enormous force. He was probably the most powerful public official outside of Washington," author Peter Elkind said on NBC last year, with the publication of his book "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer."

With all that known, David Birdsell, dean of the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College in Manhattan, put it this way: "You have a freshman governor with an extraordinary first legislative session who accomplished more than I think anyone expected him to. And this sets quite a high bar."

It also poses what Birdsell called "an interesting contrast in style and substance" with Cuomo's peer across the river, Republican Chris Christie -- and the idea of a "subway or a PATH series, a head-to-head matchup that would have to prove interesting."

"But we're so far away from 2016," he added. "The national agenda may be very different by the time 2016 rolls around," with numerous U.S. governors emerging as outsize figures.

And if you don't believe five years is a long time, consider the mere three weeks it took for Anthony Weiner to travel from 2013 mayoral prospect to unemployed ex-congressman.