The State of the State
While this post is revolves around New York State politics it does have some wider implications as well.
I haven’t delved into Governor Andrew Cuomo’s troubles because I wanted to let them play out a bit more but I might as well get the ball rolling now and we can revisit it at a later date after most of the dust has settled.
Governor Cuomo is at an inflection point in his political career. He is being accused by seven women (so far) of inappropriate behavior in the Governors mansion and at public and private events. The Governor has denied any such behavior and at first, the tribe that runs New York State (the Democratic Legislature) said nothing and eventually saw the writing on the wall, and came out in full force against the governor.
The State’s Attorney General did the right thing by launching an independent probe to get to the bottom of this and honestly, that is the exact right response. Even if her vision may be blurred by some political aspirations, she made the call and until that investigation concludes, I am not going to pass judgement.
Governor Cuomo received adulation for his stepping up and holding The hand of every New Yorker and for that matter, every American. he was front and center, took the questions, fielded the fears and calmed a lot of people. He did what President Trump should have done from the beginning and everyone was glued to their TV’s at 12pm EST while he addressed the State and the Nation as well. He won an Emmy for the performance and along with all the praise he was hearing from every network and news organization in the country he lost sight of some very important things. He ordered that elderly sick patients should be sent to nursing homes instead of ER’s out of fear of flooding ER’s with these patients and shutting out younger patients that needed that care as well. This was a bad move, obviously, as deaths in nursing homes spiked and the results were catastrophic.
His handling of the aftermath of this bad decision is what I have an issue with, first and foremost. Not being able to say, “We screwed up” or “ I thought that this was the best place for them, considering what New York was going through, we made some egregious mistakes” or anything like that is what gets me. These elderly patients all had families that could not care for them during the beginning of the pandemic and basically saw their parents and loved ones sentenced to possible serious exposure to a virus that took no prisoners. These families don’t even get an “I’m sorry”.
That is the height of ego and infallibility. Two things we don’t need to see in our leaders now and while Governor Cuomo has stayed steadfast in his resolve because of his ego and his belief in his infallibility, he has lost pretty much all the support he had in Albany. The congressional delegation and both of our US Senators have asked for him to resign and yet he stands tall every day, refusing to give up the power he assumes he still has. His political career, once looking so bright, is not in the toilet and for some odd reason, I still think he will survive and in two years, try and run for a fourth term.
I can only think of one other Houdini act in any governors mansion and that was Louisiana’s Edwin Edwards. Guy was elected, thrown out, re elected, tossed again, then re-elected a third time before finally getting arrested and spending 7 years in jail. He has to wait another two years and he can run again. Not saying Andrew Cuomo is a criminal by any means but he is a skilled politician who knows his way around Albany and it would not surprise me one bit if he survives and continues, wounded definitely, but still in control.