How far will Andrew Cuomo go? The ambitious governor of New York State, propelled to the fore by the coronavirus crisis, has never been so popular in his state. And, in this presidential election year in the United States, more and more Democrats would like him to face President Donald Trump in place of Joe Biden, the alleged Democratic candidate.
Every day, weekends included, at the end of the morning, the 62-year-old governor sits in front of the cameras in the Red Room of the Capitol in Albany, the capital of the State of New York. For a good hour, he calmly presents the latest news of a crisis that has left more than 10,000 dead in the country’s most affected state. He masters everything: check-ups across the state, hospitalizations, shortages of masks or respirators, the flattening of the curve, the future strategy of deconfinement … And, as a typical New Yorker, he keeps growing. clamoring for additional resources.
Normal that 87% of New Yorkers approve of its management of the crisis, against 41% for the tenant of the White House. It is that it offers a striking contrast with a draft Trump, boastful, impulsive, always ready to do battle … A president who is even being taken back by his own medical experts.
Cuomo is not known for his diplomatic skills, he is presented more as an autocrat, but since the start of the crisis, he has been able to maneuver Trump, like him from the Queens neighborhood. Monday, April 13 again, he acknowledged that “Trump had risen to New York.”
The Kennedys of New York
Cuomo reassures and comforts at the same time. When he speaks with all Italian emotion about his worries with Michaela, the youngest of his three daughters, or when he worries about his mother Matilda, 88, or his little brother Chris, who has the coronavirus, his audience understands. Plus, the Cuomo family is a dynasty here. His father Mario was a popular governor in the 1980s. Chris is a well-known host on CNN, who regularly invites his eldest son to the air, offering lively debates that show genuine affection and… are a good publicity stunt.
The Cuomos are a bit like the Kennedys of New York and, indeed, Andrew married Kerry Kennedy as a first marriage, one of the daughters of Bobby, brother of John, the assassinated president. Divorced, the governor now lives alone in his residence in Albany and his rating continues to climb among lonely New Yorkers. “It seems that he likes blondes”, jokes Tzaddi Perellon, a New York brunette who does not miss any of his press points, “for him, I’m ready to be dyed! “
A Biden-Cuomo “ticket” for the presidential election?
Cuomo is everywhere. On Monday, for example, in the early morning, he was the guest of a very popular program in the United States. After his press briefing, he joined the governors of the six neighboring states to insist on the necessary coordination during deconfinement. He continued with a radio interview then spent the evening on CNN channels, then MSNBC…
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On CNN, he was asked what he would do if Trump ordered him to reopen confined New York. “If he ordered me to do it and it compromises the health of the people of my state, I would not do it.” And he urged the president not to behave like a “dictator”. The day before, Trump had said he had “total power” to “restart the economy”.
Could Andrew Cuomo really replace a low-key Biden these days? The scenario, to date, is more political fiction. First, the person himself denies any immediate ambition. It would also be necessary that the former vice-president of Barack Obama agrees to leave the field free to him, which seems improbable. And the powerful left wing of his party accuses him of being a technocrat too ready to compromise with the Republicans.
So, as we hear more and more, could he join Joe Biden, as running mate on the Democratic “ticket”? The problem is that the future candidate announced some time ago that his vice-president would be a woman… To be continued.
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