It's been well documented here and elsewhere that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has governed as a conservative along the lines of Chris Christie and Scott Walker on many economic and social issues (notwithstanding his support for gay marriage, which was actually encouraged by the business community in NY).
As discussed, Cuomo has fought to end a millionaire's tax in New York that currently exists (and therefore would not even be a new tax), while at the same time cutting basic things like health care for public middle-class workers like crossing guards making $20,000, and enacting a property tax-cap for wealthy suburbanites so that funding for schools and programs for the elderly are slashed.
His political calculus is easy to understand: As New York's top Democrat, he won't often get criticized by Democrats in his state (or the State Democratic Party he controls), and if he governs as a conservative, the Murdoch-owned New York Post and Zuckerman-owned Daily News, will sing his praises. So a New York Governor who has no one loudly criticizing him will naturally have high approval ratings, and that's just what happened.
But something once-in-a-generation has happened to undermine Cuomo's "sure thing."
Occupy Wall Street is dangerous for Cuomo in many ways. First, it's in his own backyard so he can't simply ignore it. Second, it protests everything Cuomo has fought for as Governor (more giveaways to the wealthy and big business, while mandating more sacrifice for the rest of us). And third, it pits Cuomo against the majority of his state -- and critically, his own party, whose nomination for President in 2016 he wants so badly that he has his pet reporter Fred Dicker (a conservative who is the only reporter in the state Cuomo grants interviews to) drum up speculation about it at least once a month.
So what did Cuomo do this past week when OWS expanded from Wall Street to Albany (the state capitol where he works) and started targeting Cuomo for exemplifying everything the protest opposes?
The aforementioned Dicker:
Gov. Cuomo suffered a rare political defeat over the weekend as he tried but failed to get Albany’s Democratic mayor to do something Mayor Bloomberg won’t do: shut down the local Occupy Wall Street demonstration.
About 200 mainly young, hippie-like demonstrators “occupied’’ Albany’s Academy Park across from the Capitol on Friday night, pitching some 30 tents, claiming solidarity with Zuccotti Park protesters, and chanting for, among other things, higher taxes on the wealthy.
Cuomo, fearful the action could spark a larger protest that would carry over and potentially disrupt the next legislative session -- where his continued opposition to a “millionaire’s tax’’ will be highly controversial -- demanded that Mayor Jerry Jennings, a longtime friend, enforce a city ordinance closing parks at 11 p.m.
While Jennings initially promised to do so, he then nervously backed down.
....
Cuomo last year considered Jennings as a possible running mate for lieutenant governor but picked Mayor Robert Duffy of Rochester instead.
“It’s fair to say that after Jennings’ performance with the demonstrators, the governor thinks he made the right choice,’’ said a source close to Cuomo.
It gets better. Not only did the mayor of Albany resist Governor 1 Percent's call to kill the protests, so too did the local DA... and the police officers themselves. From the Albany Times Union:
In a tense battle of wills, state troopers and Albany police held off making arrests of dozens of protesters near the Capitol over the weekend even as Albany's mayor, under pressure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration, had urged his police chief to enforce a city curfew.
....
"We were ready to make arrests if needed, but these people complied with our orders," a State Police official said. However, he added that State Police supported the defiant posture of Albany police leaders to hold off making arrests for the low-level offense of trespassing, in part because of concern it could incite a riot or draw thousands of protesters in a backlash that could endanger police and the public.
"We don't have those resources, and these people were not causing trouble," the official said. "The bottom line is the police know policing, not the governor and not the mayor."
A city police source said his department also was reluctant to damage what he considers to be good community relations that have taken years to rebuild. In addition, the crowd included elderly people and many others who brought their children with them.
"There was a lot of discussion about how it would look if we started pulling people away from their kids and arresting them ... and then what do we do with the children?" one officer said.
...
Joshua Vlasto, a spokesman for Cuomo, did not respond directly to questions about contact between Cuomo's secretary, Larry Schwartz, and Jennings. "The state is working collaboratively with the city to enforce the curfew," Vlasto said in a statement Friday evening.
So when 2016 rolls around and Team Cuomo tries to romance us with claims of some great progressive record, let's remember what Andrew Cuomo truly was: The Governor 1 Percent, who tried to shut down the largest democratic (and peaceful) expression of solidarity for everyday Americans against the greed of big banks and business, in a generation.