The same old Cuomo, dividing as always

I have never won an argument with Andrew Cuomo. When Bill de Blasio wanted to raise New York City’s minimum wage, Cuomo argued that it was the selfish act of a mayor more interested in campaigning than governing and that it would create economic havoc if the city’s low-wage workers earned more than those in Nassau and Westchester. I was a loyal staff member, so I nodded and repeated his points everywhere I went. Cuomo was always brilliant at convincing you why someone else was wrong.

The final argument he makes in his mayoral campaign is much less subtle. Cuomo’s vision for New York City is not about ideas or goals. He has no philosophy, no cause, no promise of what he will do. It’s about scaring New Yorkers from Zohran Mamdani. Because he is young. Because his ideas are new. And now he’s the most shameful, because he’s a Muslim New Yorker.

There is cold logic behind this. Even in the friendliest polls, Cuomo has the smallest enthusiastic base of any candidate. Curtis Sliwa has more and more people excited to vote for him. Cuomo’s only chance is to gather enough voters who fear or despise his opponent enough to accept him by default. It has nothing to offer for the future, just a cynical warning that we can’t leave it to anyone else.

When de Blasio became mayor, I was one of the few Cuomo staffers in the room who had worked for both men, and I was really excited at first. They were both brilliant, demanding and difficult. I thought their combined powers could solve New York’s most intractable problems.

Instead, Cuomo’s first instinct was to tear down de Blasio. There was no way to moderate his anger. The universal pre-kindergarten plan was naive, he said. His tax proposal was a disaster. There are many moments that I wish I could say pushed back. But I followed, convinced that New York could not be trusted in de Blasio’s hands. Cuomo had to be in control.

But what really hurt New York was not the mayor’s policies, but the endless fighting. The agencies stopped coordinating. We treated the city like an enemy. It was stupid. It was wrong. But we all saw the world through Cuomo’s eyes.

The best description of this gift comes from Walter Isaacson, who wrote about Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field” – the power to make others believe the impossible through sheer force of will. Cuomo had it. For more than two terms, it worked. He wielded power with more effect and with less opposition than anyone since Robert Moses. Its imprint is everywhere: tunnels, bridges, stations, airports.

But it’s that same need for control that brought him here: stuck in a race he has little chance of winning, for a job he never really wanted. And that’s because Cuomo can see everyone’s faults except his own. He doesn’t show humility. He rarely apologizes. And if you never admit your mistakes, you’ll never learn from them. You never evolve.

Ambition can move mountains, but it can also distance you from the world you’re trying to shape. Cuomo’s ambition has left him unable, or unwilling, to talk about what New Yorkers actually need. He has no plans to push back on Washington’s authoritarianism or make life affordable in the nation’s most expensive city.

For every rant launched against Mamdani or maneuver undertaken to exclude Sliwa from the race, there is a gaping absence of solutions for New Yorkers. No ideas for reducing youth unemployment, improving public transportation or standing up to Donald Trump. His argument was reduced to a single line: I am the only choice you have.

This is why his campaign seems to come from another era. He uses the only game plan he knows: raise a lot of money, cover the airwaves, hammer his opponents. His argument is not about what he will do for voters. It’s about why they should fear the one who stands in the way of their return to power.

I can’t pretend I didn’t learn from Cuomo. I did it. When faced with a difficult political problem, I can still hear the counterargument he would present, the one that would beat me. For years, he used this gift of persuasion for good: marriage equality, gun safety, college education in prisons.

But now he’s using it to scare New Yorkers away from each other. As disappointing as it is to see a leader I once admired, I don’t need to believe he’s bad to vote for someone else. This is the kind of argument Andrew Cuomo would make.

Wing runs the political marketing firm Wingspan and previously served as press secretary to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.