Andrew Cuomo will not be a good mayor

In the classic New York coming-of-age story, “A tale from the Bronx”, the protagonist asks his hero if it is better to be loved or feared. His response: “It’s better to be afraid, because fear lasts longer than love…it’s fear that keeps them faithful to me.”

For five decades, this philosophy defined the “get along or kill“identity, and that is one of the fundamental reasons why he should not be mayor.

I should know. I was a senior advisor to Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaigns in 2010 and 2014, and I saw first-hand how his pursuit of power for power’s sake made him a poor leader. Later, as a senior advisor at City Hall during the pandemic, I saw how his petty squabbles and personal vendettas hurt real New Yorkers.

I’ve spoken to dozens of former Cuomo diaspora colleagues who feel exactly the same way, but who haven’t been able to speak out publicly. They don’t like Cuomo, but fear of retaliation has kept them silent.

Cuomo says his experience makes him uniquely qualified to address the challenges facing New York City, but what kind of experience has it been for New York?

We’ve all heard the Cuomo stories. Bullying behavior. Toxic work environment. Threatening phone calls. Disjointed diatribes.

As governor, Cuomo amassed power, New Yorkers saw that power corrupt him. And when his COVID briefings turned him into an international celebrity, New Yorkers saw how absolute power had utterly corrupted him.

Cuomo created an ethics commission to clean up Albany, but then he disbanded it once he started looking into his own administration. A longtime friend and adviser to Cuomo reached a deal with the Justice Department, which uncovered years of bribery and corruption. His main assistant – who he called his father’s third son — went to prison for accepting bribes. He led nearly $1 billion in tax breaks for Elon Musk.

Even at the height of the COVID crisis, the governor seemed more focused on settling political scores than protecting New Yorkers.

As the virus took hold in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio called for a shelter-in-place to stop the spread. Cuomo ridiculed it and dismissed the ideabut a few days later he announced his “New York State on pause.” Cuomo’s delay most likely led to tens of thousands of preventable COVID infections.

Cuomo made another catastrophic mistake by sending elderly people with COVID to die in nursing homes, then tried to cover it up, even as he got a $5 million book deal. A bipartisan Congressional panel — including Democrats – accused Cuomo of lying about his role in the cover-up.

Cuomo banned state health department officials from working closely with their municipal counterparts and he even played politics with the state’s vaccination program, push county leaders to demonstrate political loyalty before distributing vaccines And block the opening of vaccination clinics in certain districts as a measure of political retaliation. When NYC Health & Hospitals announced a mass vaccination site with the Mets at Citi Field, Cuomo privately threatened to refuse vaccines because the team’s leadership had accepted City Hall’s invitation before checking with the governor’s office.

When de Blasio reopened public schoolsthe candidate who now claims to be champion of municipal control worked actively against the cohesive management of the public school system as part of his little quarrel.

These are just a few examples of Cuomo’s mismanagement — not even mentioning the sexual misconduct allegations that led him to resign in disgrace.

There is certainly reason to fear Cuomo’s wrath. When her first survivor of sexual harassment spoke out, he abandoned his political team to destroy his career. When other women bravely came forward, Cuomo fought them in court – even looking for their gynecological records.

But our politics need not be so venomous. Next month, New Yorkers will have to choose between two very different visions of New York City.

One centers on fear — the fear of American carnage that has come to define the Cuomo-Trump political era.

The other, led by Zohran Mamdani, is a vision of what is possible when we don’t limit ourselves to the outdated and broken ideas of the past. It’s a vision centered on love for our fellow New Yorkers and a love for our city that is so clearly evident in the joy and energy Mamdani generates in the electoral campaign.

So is it better to be loved or feared? For New Yorkers, the choice is clear.

Kauffmann is a Democratic strategist.