Excelsior, Ever Lower

 

As a side hustle over the years, I’ve been a photographer at many philanthropic and political galas. It’s not my favorite work, but the pay is usually OK and if you do a good enough job, they invite you back the next year—a little like a work annuity. So it was in the early 2000’s when I was covering the annual fundraiser for a prominent local environmental group. It’s a gig I had done before, and many of the same folks were there from previous years. There’s a kind of code at these events when it comes to pictures, with photographers keeping an eye out for celebs willing to have their photos taken with civilians (those who pay to go to these things). With a subtle nod of the head, the celeb smiles and extends their arm around the civilian, and I click away.

Thus I thought nothing of it when I saw a politician, who not-so-secretly was about to launch a statewide campaign, talking with a civilian. They seemed to know each other in a vague way, so I naturally asked if they wanted a picture. The civilian, we’ll call him Bob, stood up straight, adjusted his tie, and flashed a grin across his face, and the politician…looked at me. It wasn’t a blank look, but a highly unresponsive one. He turned to the civilian and simply deadpanned, “Oh Bob wouldn’t want a picture with me” and then calmly walked away. It was hardly the usual behavior of a an out-of-office politician gearing up for a major campaign, and both Bob and I were just plain confused by the whole thing. Then again, the politician in question was Andrew Cuomo.

In the Donald Trump model of life, any news, meaning any mention of your name, is good news. Accusations of obstructing justice and illicit female relationships were swatted away like contestants on an Apprentice episode. For Andrew Cuomo, the same accusations these past few weeks have been a political nightmare, and there has been nowhere for him to simply walk away.

Perhaps it’s all genetic. Cuomo’s dad Mario, the former New York Governor, was known to be just as thin-skinned and as much of a bully to the Albany press as Andrew. He’d call a reporter at eight in the morning to complain about some petty umbrage he took to a recent article. Now complaining to, and about, reporters is an ancient political art, but calling them only a few hours after they got to bed was considered a hostile act. But even Mario had to compromise, given that Republicans controlled the State Senate and significant parts of upstate and Long Island. For Andrew, political opposition has been wiped out across the state and he has steamrolled his way to absolute control. Of course the last steamroller in Albany, Governor Eliot Spitzer, had his own control issues, namely with prostitutes, and it cost him his job.

Perhaps Andrew Cuomo thinks this will all blow over. This is the same Governor who managed to shut down the state’s Moreland commission on government corruption when the investigation started to knock on his door and that of his supporters. A few minor characters went to jail, but somehow Cuomo managed to bully and bluster his way out of the whole affair.

But then there are the women.

First was senior aide Melissa DeRosa admitting, like John Dean at the Watergate hearings, that the Cuomo administration had deliberately obstructed a Department of Justice investigation into the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents. And while Biden’s DOJ announced they would open their own investigation, nobody can figure out why it will be in the Eastern District of New York, some 150 miles away from Albany, when staff from the Northern District of New York could walk two blocks to Cuomo’s office at the state Capitol building. One gets the sense this will be as successful as a 2019 health inspection at the Wuhan wet market.

But now there are more women kissing (albeit non-consensually) and telling. Two former staffers have accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, and just as I am typing this sentence a third woman has come forward recounting Cuomo copping and unwanted feel. At first Cuomo forcefully denied anything happened, sounding much like Trump in his own, weird Cuomo-esque accent. But a funny thing happened—all of a sudden Cuomo’s story is now one of being playful, adding a little humor to the serious business of government work, lightening the mood. Denials now have a different storyline, which is to say it’s not a denial.

Yet Cuomo still is grasping to whatever power he has. Instead of acquiescing to the obvious, Cuomo suggested that he appoint his own special investigator about these allegations. As a sign of his diminished standing, the entire Capital laughed that idea away and the State Attorney General will grant a private attorney, with full subpoena power, authority to investigate the matter.

There are two things I’m sure about. First, Cuomo will fight all of this to the bitter, bitter, end. His chances of higher office, heck a fourth and final term as Governor, have melted away like the winter’s snow. He has nothing to lose and may just try to run out the clock, hoping his well-practiced skills of obstruction and deceit will work one more time. We’ll see how that all goes. And the second thing—just don’t ask to take a picture with him.

© 2021 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.