Even with several investigations turning it around, Governor Cuomo is increasingly challenging, according to sources.
“She is OK. There was no idea that he would resign “, said a privileged person. “The resignation has no basis. There is no rise.
“It’s a kind of crisis. It has always been that way. He is who he is. The crisis is getting the best out of him. ”
As Cuomo explodes, employees are losing faith, a source who has been briefed on talks in the executive office this week said.
“Is there an idea among the staff of‘ how long can you gain time until the next story comes out? “And that’s clearly this: a tactic to see how long the clock can run out,” the source said.
Because of the defective staff, Cuomo is isolated by his closest confidants and his most allies including his three daughters and black community leaders – and takes advice from the person he thinks he knows best about New York voters: himself.
While he appeared to be approaching his political death last week, with calls from Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer to step down, Cuomo remained energetic.
“The Schumer and Gillibrand movement did not affect thinking at all. Politicians and voters are in very different places right now. ” Said the interior.
In the eyes of his critics, this self-centered thinking is what made him fall into place.
“Business as always is the problem, not the solution. The “business as always” is what led Governor Andrew Cuomo to sexually harass Charlotte Bennett and seven other women, “said Deborah Katz, a lawyer for Bennett, Cuomo’s 25-year-old former aide, who said the governor urged her to ask questions about her sex life at the governor’s mansion last year and stated that she would date women as young as 22 years old.
“Governor Cuomo can hide anything he wants from the questions and can try to pile up the dismissal investigation [by the state Assembly] in his favor, but the truth will come out. The independent investigation by the Attorney General will show that Andrew Cuomo has a long and unacceptable history of surrounding himself with facilitators who will allow him to sexually harass young women trying to work in the public service. ”
Cuomo, meanwhile, has tried to interpret his isolation as a virtue.
“Part of that is that I’m not part of the political club. And you know what? I’m proud of it, “Cuomo said last Friday.
Although political observers mocked Cuomo’s statement as a career politician, starting with his first job working for his father, the late Governor Mario Cuomo, strategists say there is truth in the position.
“Politicians don’t like it, and that’s just a crescendo of events. He has been able to incite the passions of the right and the left. They have been waiting for the right time to eat and kill him, ”said veteran strategist Hank Sheinkopf.
While their frenzy abounds, few cops are more adept at the art of influencing voter sentiment than Cuomo, experts noted.
“The man has been chosen four times by the state of New York. He knows what the people of New York want to get out of him. He is in exclusive tune with what they need during this crisis,” the informant explained.
A poll released Monday suggested Cuomo’s thinking about the voting public seemed true. Half of those surveyed by Siena College said the governor should not step down.
“It’s not surprising, especially when a survey comes out that says 50% I don’t want him to resign as he thinks I can convince voters. The only thing that matters to me is the voters, not the politicians. ” This is the message now. So it will be suspended until things start to go to the polls, ”said a second source familiar with the governor’s thinking.
But on Thursday, a poll by the University of Quinnipiac showed that 43 per cent of voters believed they should resign, compared to 35 per cent who said so in the Siena poll on Monday.
Cuomo continued his strategy of nothing to see here throughout the week.
The public last heard about his allegations of sexual harassment on March 12 and said on Wednesday that he would not turn to them again pending the investigation of the dismissal.
Instead, it relied on key voting blocks and tangible examples of progress that voters are easy to digest: infrastructure projects and vaccination effort, strategists and the privileged explained.
On Wednesday he received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem, a photograph where journalists were banned.
“It’s really simple, it’s that the show has to go on and hell with the rest. It won’t give in. It won’t fit in. It won’t show weakness. It will go back to what it knows how to do, which is to make the show go on no matter what cost, ”Sheinkopf observed.
Despite the usual strategy, the governor’s most brutal behavior reports continued throughout the week.
On Friday, The New Yorker reported that Cuomo made a joke when he would try to “mount” his former assistant and first accuser Lindsey Boylan, if he were a dog.
On Friday, a current aide appeared with new allegations of sexual harassment and a cover-up led by Cuomo to hide the allegations of other staff who had tasted him at the governor’s mansion last year.
President Biden first commented on the allegations on Wednesday, but stopped calling for Cuomo’s immediate withdrawal. He said he should resign if it is proven that the allegations are true.
Sheinkopf said that if the country’s top Dem came out against him, it would be the ultimate key to Cuomo’s coffin.
“I think Biden’s response could have been – could still be – very damaging.”