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Andrew Cuomo
While the horse race aspects of 2016 election Presidential election are mostly meaningless, the election is still important because it can impact the significant decisions powerful politicians are currently making. As long as a politician is seriously thinking about a run in 2016 it changes the leverage groups have over him/her. A perfect example is this anti-fracking ad that was run in Iowa against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). From the New York Times:
Increasingly, for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, all politics are national.
With a deadline for issuing guidelines for hydraulic fracturing in New York State approaching at the end of February, a group of organizations opposed to the practice are running an ad about him in … Iowa.
“Not one well,” the full-page ad, destined for Tuesday’s Des Moines Register, urges in large block print. The closing line: “Your choice now will be remembered forever.”
If Cuomo is planning on running in four years his political future depends more on what Iowa Democrats think of him than registered voters in New York. Probably the best hope of moving a possible 2016 candidate on a policy decision in the short term is by exploiting this dynamic.
Photo by Azi Paybarah under Creative Commons license
9 Comments
Fracking is losing its luster in the heartland — especially in farm country. Even operations that aren’t fracking but which are connected to it, such as mining for the silica sand used in fracking, are growing increasingly unpopular.
I love this tactic. Thank you for sharing it.
And the full-page ad that presumably ran in yesterday’s Des Moines Register is phenomenal.
If New York’s communities, land, water and air are saved as a result of Cuomo’s 2016 hopes and political calculus, all to the good for us all.
Thanks for the article. Good news!
It would be so very refreshing to see a Democratic political candidate positioning himself by his actions on the side of the environment and the people.
It would be refreshing only if we forget (again) that a Democratic political candidate runs left in the primary, center in the general and then governs center right.
This is the same Cuomo who, as Hillary was identifying her base as hard-working white people, accused Obama of schucking and jiving and then denied his remark had any racial intent.
He could be sincere about this for all I know.
Or not.
Well, that was why I said “by his actions”, meaning if he puts a dead stop to fracking in New York state.
I didn’t know about his charming racial remarks.
On edit: I don’t know about his sincerity. I was really talking about him throwing in his lot with the ordinary people instead of the big bucks. Which is what I meant by his political calculus.
Slight timeline correction, Jon: the Iowa caucuses, when Cuomo might be running, are not “in four years.” Three years from now, they’ll already be in the rear view mirror.
I was in no way criticizing you or your post, only (1) reserving judgment on Cuomo and (2) pointing out that what a candidate says or does in hopes of winning a Democratic primary may have very little to do with how that candidate governs if elected..
If my family and I could live for 8 years in a lifestyle a pasha could not even dream up and then I could amass a fortune of $110 million or more, while bringing glory to my family, I, too, might say and do almost anything to get that job.
I’d like to think otherwise, but it is tempting and that is what the imperial Presidency has become.
I cited the shuckin’ and jivin’ comment because I think it shows how low Cuomo in particular was willing to go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XQ6GNIoSzQ
Fascinating. But hasn’t Cuomo already besmudged the family name by caving in to banking interests? His father must be — or ought to be — deeply ashamed.