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WFP Endorses Cuomo: Business as Usual in Albany

Posted in Editorials on June 3rd, 2014
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Corruption and Albany are synonymous. In fact, nothing about Albany corruption surprises us anymore. Indictments run rampant. Scandals loom in every corner. Deals are made every day under the assumption that voters are stupid and don’t pay attention. And it seems that at any given time, jury selection is underway somewhere in New York for a pending trial of some politician.

So the Working Families Party’s nomination of Gov. Andrew Cuomo this weekend should come as no surprise. What is odd is that the Governor, who is in good shape to be handily re-elected, threw the Senate IDC-Republican “co-majority” under the bus in order to win a nomination that four years ago he was considering not taking at all.

Perhaps the governor saw what the “professional left” has done to other, more centrist, Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Christine Quinn and he was afraid he would eventually meet the same fate. However, it doesn’t really seem logical that a WFP candidate would garner enough votes to realistically threaten his re-election. The candidate being considered, Zephyr Teachout, is an unknown entity who would have trouble garnering the 50,000 votes the WFP needs to remain an active political party with ballot access in this state. If the WFP endorsed her, the unions would still back Cuomo, siphoning votes and dollars from any campaign she had.

In fact, there is much more for the WFP to lose than gain in not endorsing Cuomo.

So why? Was this all really about a local minimum wage, income inequality, corporate tax breaks, and other populist issues? Unlikely. It would seem almost ridiculous to buck a sitting governor when he has delivered on other progressive initiatives like gun control and marriage equality.

Questions remain: Will Cuomo be true to his word and actually turn on his GOP-IDC allies in Albany? Can he actually follow-through on any of his legislative promises given that the session is about to close? Does the WFP have any recourse if he doesn’t? Is this really about satisfying liberal activists in advance of a presidential bid?

And overall: Why? Why the fight, the drama, the tension?

Perhaps the answer is in who came to Andrew Cuomo’s rescue at the WFP convention: none other than Mayor Bill de Blasio. Darling of the Working Families Party and the professional left.

Maybe it’s as simple as de Blasio and his allies just taking another pol down a peg after a strenuous six months.

As always with Albany…we may never know. Unless there’s an indictment.

One Response to “WFP Endorses Cuomo: Business as Usual in Albany”

  1. Elizabeth Says:

    This whole thing was clearly more about power than policy, which kind of breaks my idealistic bleeding heart, but that’s how it works in Albany. And after power I believe this was about identity. The WFP was asking Cuomo if he was one of them, populist or plutocrat? He expended significant effort to please them, and that DeBlasio went to bat for him is kind of mind boggling. I will be interested to see how this plays out.

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