Campaign Diaries

It sure looks like New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wants to avoid making any definite statement about a possible gubernatorial run and he is sure dropping enough hints that his denials about the gubernatorial race should not be taken too seriously. Today, Politicker reported Cuomo’s insistence that “my plan is to run for re-election as attorney general” - with the New York Daily News hearing something similar out of a state party meeting held over the week-end.

Contrary to some reports, this statement does not rule out a run. Talking about “plans” is a classical way to delay a response because it is a turn of phrase that is focused on one’s present disposition:  “I have no plan to run” is not the same thing as “I will not run” and it is clearly meaningful that Cuomo is making sure to preface his comments with “my plan is…” In that same Politicker interview, Cuomo made sure to emphasize the unpredictability of future events. “Oh, who knows what’s going to happen next year,” he said. “Next year is a long way away.”

All of this contradicts Rep. Charlie Rangel, who said today that Cuomo had called him to assure him that he would not challenge Paterson. But Cuomo’s office quickly responded with a statement that made it clear that his talk of “plans” is a platitude meant to dodge the question:

The Attorney General’s discussion with Congressman Rangel was private but was consistent with what he has repeatedly said over the last six months, which is that his current plan is to run for re-election as Attorney General, and that next year is a political lifetime away.

A politician who wants to squash speculation can easily find an emphatic way to assert that (offer flowery praise for the opponent, make an over-the-top statement). Not only is Cuomo not offering such Shermanesque denials, but he also spent an incomprehensibly long time praising the notion of a primary:

The Democratic Party is essentially a party of primaries. I mean, there’s always the discussion ‘maybe it would be good if there were no primaries, and everyone just gets behind and picks a candidate.’ For many years the Democrats said that’s what the Republicans do. They just squelch intra-party discussion. The—we often have primaries. President Obama is the product of primaries. In the presidential, the senate race, I even think he ran against Bobby Rush for Congress, early on. That must have been a primary, right? So we’re a party of primaries, which I think winds up being good for us, because I think the conversation and the discussion within the party can be very productive. Because we have a broad party, a lot of diverse interests, and those interests need to be discussed and need to be aired. So I think it can be good, as long as the primaries remain constructive, and not destructive.

I’m glad Cuomo likes primaries, but is that a reason to offer such a long answer, especially in his circumstances? And while he was answering distinct questions within the same interview, he must have been aware of how his combined responses would sound: “I don’t plan to run but let me go out of my way to offer you a very long response on why it’s great for a party to have primaries - even when we’re talking about a challenge to an incumbent.”

In short: Cuomo sees no benefit in showing his card too early. Paterson is so stunningly unpopular that the Democratic nomination seems to be Cuomo’s for the taking, so why would he open himself up to attacks so early when he can wait until the fall before making his intentions clear? (Also, keep in mind that many Democrats are likely to pressure Cuomo into running if Paterson does not retire as the incumbent looks to be heading towards a certain general election defeat.)

Over in the Senate race, Kirsten Gillibrand is not guaranteed a clean run to the nomination either as Obama’s intervention has not succeeded in scaring all of her critics away from the primary. Jose Serrano, who I earlier wrote was considering a challenge to the Senator, recently had some of the harshest yet uttered by an elected official:

If the president, with his background and who he is tells me I have his commitment that she will now at least treat immigrants as human beings, then that’s OK, right? It might be OK.

If anything, the Senator’s move to the left has been so abrupt that
it should make liberals even more determined to oppose her: If she was
willing to shift that quickly on high-profile issues, who knows where she will end up if she survives next year’s primary? Those comments by Serrano are further proof that many prominent Democrats outright distrust Gillibrand, making it difficult to envision that she could escape a credible challenge. The New York Daily News reports that Rep. Carolyn Maloney remains the most probable Democratic candidate - noting that Upper East Side Democratic committeewoman Trudy Mason has been telling state Democrats that Maloney will have an announcement to make within 2 weeks.