We’re seeing first-rate Class A politics in New York State. An event was held in Harlem on Wednesday allegedly promoting a pop-up vaccination clinic at Mount Neboh Baptist Church where embattled Governor Andrew Cuomo was vaccinated
One-shot). It was really a planned and wild rally for a governor under threat of impeachment and accused of sexual harassment and death in nursing homes.
Civil rights veterans, clergymen and politicians gathered around the governor, who for the first time in many weeks appeared to be in a hopping mood, also for banning the press – his office claimed “Covid restrictions” – which kept them from asking questions that got in the way of the news: The people are with Andrew. Former MP Charlie Rangel, who had been dean of the New York congressional delegation, said, “When people pile on you. . . you go to your family and you go to your friends because you know they will be with you. “Hazel Dukes, president of the state NAACP, named Mr. Cuomo her son. “Thank you, Governor, we stand by your side for all you’ve done.”
It was one of those moments when politics has real human energy. But the crowd, though pumped, was not numerous, and the speakers were old. Mr Rangel is 90 years old, Mrs Dukes 89. I asked myself what attraction they have in this young city.
Still, it was a shot that was shot back when you thought it was out of ammunition.
Some thoughts on Mr. Cuomo from a long time he was watched:
He’s in politics. He wants to win and he wants to be the responsible man and he wants everyone to know his power and bow to it. He’s a Democrat because he inherited it from his family and neighborhood, and Republicans have cold hearts anyway, except for Liberal Republicans to deal with and who are in many ways preferable to Democratic Poles unless they have a blindness , they pretend politics is a serious competition. It’s not, it’s a game! But that is their problem.
He was late to see what the coronavirus was. In his testimony in early March, he warned of “excessive fear” and said what happened in Europe probably wouldn’t happen here because we have the best hospitals. Weeks later, when New York was the epicenter of the virus, Thomas Frieden, former head of the New York Department of Health and the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that if New York had moved two weeks earlier, it could have resulted in the death toll has been cut by 50% to 80%.
But when Mr Cuomo understood what the pandemic was, he moved. It gave him a cause, a focus, a role – savior in a crisis. And there was a vacuum to fill.
The White House didn’t capture the moment, they fled – it’s no big deal, no worse than the flu, tests are available to everyone, maybe you can inject disinfectant, buy in the dip. They gave up all verbal guidance.
Mr. Cuomo took hold of it. Nobody thought he was cute, but it takes a mean man to beat a mean virus. He used the same tools Rudy Giuliani used after 9/11: specificity, eloquence, and daily briefings. Specificity means that you actually know things. Every day he made news – number of infections, deaths, new cases, how many hospitalized, how many in intensive care. It was grainy – where the state gets fans, the complexities of competing with other states for personal protective equipment. He joined in with very theatrical and totally welcome arias about the importance of family, what love is, who New Yorkers are.
In the week of April 3, the height of the crisis, he announced that America’s nurses were on their way: “Twenty thousand health professionals said, ‘I’m going to leave my home and come to your state. ‘”New York would” systematize this volunteer service, this generosity, this charity, and this expertise, and that’s how we defeated this damn virus as it marched across the country. “
These briefings were spectacular. Someone had to be in charge, someone had to wake up and gather.
He deserved the stupid Emmy.
Well, archenemy: his ego. He had become popular, even loved. A poll at Siena College in late April found that 77% of New Yorkers rated positive overall.
It went into his head. After receiving praise for taking control, he took more. His plans for openings and closings became more and more complicated. The whole system looked arbitrary and crazy. He started going from a sincere papa to an authoritarian sucker. (It also happened to Gavin Newsom in California.)
Then the news began to filter out that while he was leading verbally he had made a harrowing mistake behind the scenes – which mandated that nursing homes accept those known to be infected. When he’d said from the start that he knew the ancients were the most vulnerable.
He wasn’t going to admit anything, but his chief assistant did it on a conference call. The attorney general broke the story open with a blown report and announced an investigation.
Then seven women came forward in succession for sexual harassment, some of which they claimed was committed during the pandemic year. Every reporter in town started writing about the secret, which is no secret: he is a tyrant who surrounds himself with venomous enforcers. Impeachment proceedings are ongoing.
All of these difficulties must be dealt with by Mr Cuomo. But early polls are surprising. Even after the nursing home scandal and women, a majority do not support his removal. Maybe it’s impeachment fatigue, maybe it doesn’t want any major change after Covid, but maybe it has something to do with it: The state budget is being negotiated. The legislature, increasingly under the influence of the progressive left, wants significantly higher taxes on income, capital gains and estates. Andrew Cuomo doesn’t want big gains because he doesn’t want the rich to flee New York.
The Covid Relief Act of Congress underpins its position: There is a lot of money for New York. But progressives still want the migrations because they believe in it and because they grew up in a rich country and state and cannot imagine that anything they do could do them less.
The move against Mr Cuomo in recent months has come from the left, not the right; from the young, not from the old. Albany Republicans don’t bother him much; Do Albany Progressive. He’s in their way. Some would be tormented by the events in the nursing homes, others by what the women said, but all want him to weaken in the household fight. Or gone, replaced by a new governor who doesn’t have time to build a wall of competence.
It is interesting that Mr Rangel and Mrs Dukes took action against them.
Mr Cuomo is not going to resign because he doesn’t care what you think. He’s really not interested!
I saw his daily briefing Thursday. He’s got his mojo back. He laughed and philosophized. He opens things faster than in the past. Baseball time! “It was a long dark winter. . . Spring is just around the corner. “
He can no longer ask questions about the scandals: they are being investigated, the process must take its course.
He is playing for time and believes that he will flee with his life. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? But that’s why he’s smiling.
Wunderland: Like Trump, Cuomo tried to impose Covid on himself. It can’t end well for him either. Images: AFP / Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
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