Cuomo's book deal, Rudy's son, from race to race

May 18, 2021

Daily Point

The company Cuomo keeps

What company does Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo keep with his just-confirmed $5 million book deal?

As publishing has grown more and more top-heavy and reliant on huge blockbusters, we’ve seen plenty of editors take big gambles on books they hope will pay for all the others.

That includes presidents and first ladies like the Clintons and the Obamas, the latter of whom were particularly in the stratosphere with a reported joint deal worth $65 million.

Other reported recent members of the million-dollar-plus book crew include former FBI Director Jim Comey, Pope John Paul II, and musicians Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen.

Hollywood celebrities sometimes cash in big to that degree, too, including B.J. Novak, Lena Dunham and Amy Poehler.

Sometimes, wonder of wonders, a plain old writer will land a 7-figure deal, usually because there’s something gamble-worthy about the cause: Garth Risk Hallberg’s "City on Fire" was worth it, say, because it was a huge sprawling NYC book that might have become a blockbuster and book-club staple. J.K. Rowling was worth whatever she wanted for "The Casual Vacancy" because she’s J.K. Rowling.

Lots of times, however, these bets don’t exactly pay off. One Miami Herald account from 2013 noted that trackable book sales for Tom Wolfe’s "Back to Blood," a seven-figure Miami novel, had barely topped 60,000, calculating out to at least a hundred dollars in advance funds per copy sold.

Cuomo’s "American Crisis" seems to have met a roughly similar fate, with around 50,000 hardcover sales, according to The New York Times. In the months since the book came out, of course, the governor has had even more serious issues, with overlapping investigations regarding his pandemic response and sexual harassment allegations. That has had an impact on his writing career, too. His publisher, Crown, canceled the kind of plans for promotion that could have earned back for the company more of that hefty advance.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Talking Point

Rudy’s son calls his rivals ‘brothers’

As one might expect, Andrew Giuliani, as a newly declared candidate for governor, made a couple of small stumbles in a softball radio interview Tuesday with comic Joe Piscopo on WMCA/570 AM.

The son of former mayor and current FBI target Rudy Giuliani was reaching for a conventional GOP slam against teacher unions when he accused Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of getting "rolled" in the recent state budget.

"There are a lot of really good teachers but I gotta tell you I don’t really love the people that are running the UFA," said the 35-year-old former staffer for President Donald Trump. The UFA, in New York institutional lingo, is the city’s Uniformed Firefighters Association, and Giuliani clearly meant the United Federation of Teachers.

Noticeable as it may be to Long Islanders in both unions, the error won’t matter. It only shows the rawness of Trump's ex-attorney’s son, who’s never run for anything.

But he wasn’t off message. As the new arrival, Giuliani downplayed the friction that could develop with two seasoned pols of his party, Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin and former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who have also declared a year-and-a-half in advance of the next election for governor. Zeldin is considered the front-runner, and key speculation centers on whether Cuomo will seek a fourth term.

Andrew Giuliani said he spoke with both potential rivals, and he called them "good men."

"So look, there will be a little internal competition, it’s like brothers, we’re going to go at it for a while" to determine "who the right person is," he said.

In the WMCA interview, Giuliani said Trump told him, "Ah, Giuliani-Cuomo. I could bill that fight. We could fill the Garden." Left unsaid, of course, was that Rudy Giuliani, and both Mario and Andrew Cuomo, seemed quite copacetic for decades.

The son channeled his father’s image from years past, vowing to bring down crime. In fact, he drew from the well of "Godfather" references of which the father was fond.

The novice candidate said he met Monday night with his father, who gave him "last tips" on his announcement. And as they hugged goodbye, the son said, "It was funny. it was kind of like a Michael Corleone moment, ‘Every time they pull me out they get me back in!’"

Thus marked a second fumbled reference. The Al Pacino quote from Godfather 3 went: "Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in."

Whatever. Write that one off as a beginner’s mistake, too.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Pencil Point

Not-so-fresh air

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Final Point

From governor's race to village mayor run

An incomplete list of James Larocca’s many stops in New York politics includes: transportation commissioner for Gov. Mario Cuomo, failed contender for the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, head of the Long Island Association, chairman of the Long Island Power Authority, commissioner on the state Public Service Commission, Sag Harbor village trustee, and now — candidate for Sag Harbor mayor.

"I came into it very late, because this was something I was never going to do," Larocca told The Point about the new run. He is, after all, technically retired.

But he announced his candidacy for the June election in early May because he’d become "disaffected" with current Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy, he said.

The source of that disaffection is a complicated land use issue currently roiling Sag Harbor politics involving Bay Street Theater, the village cultural institution that is looking to establish a new home after renting space for decades. Yet those construction plans are clashing with Larocca’s efforts to add more land to the John Steinbeck Waterfront Park, a major cause for the public service vet. Larocca characterizes Mulcahy as too supportive of the theater’s move to build on a lot that has been home to a 7-Eleven. It’s part of a suite of land parcels being purchased for large sums in the village, something Larocca says concerns him.

Mulcahy told The Point, "I do support Bay Street as a major economic driver in our Village," as well as supporting "their right to build on property they purchased on the open market." She says a new theater "could make a lovely anchor for our park and a dramatic entrance to our Village from over the bridge."

Larocca’s term as trustee isn’t up until next year, but the mayoral run puts him back on the hustings sooner.

Though he lost his big 1998 bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, he says his political instincts were good — he’d thought that someone outside of the top tier of Democratic candidates might get the nod "because no one was going to beat Pataki," the Republican incumbent. That ended up being right in a way, though it was then-New York City Council Speaker Peter Vallone who did the losing.

"My theory was excellent," Larocca says now.

About his latest run, Larocca said the "kidding" he gets from friends in and around government is that "so you wanted to be governor, and you're willing to settle for mayor of Sag Harbor."

He said he gets it: "The people spoke. They favored another, I got the message. Let’s see if it happens again."