ANOTHER VOICE
History shows pandemic may propel Cuomo toward White House
By Another Voice Published 4:00 p.m. April 12, 2020
By Paul Alexander
History is on the side of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
After the stock market crash of 1929, President Herbert Hoover was reluctant to have the federal government intervene into what became the Great Depression. By 1932, conditions were so dire the public yearned for a leader who was willing to lead. The person they turned to was Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor of New York, who promised to unleash the full force of the federal government – what became the New Deal – to combat the financial crisis.
A similar dynamic is unfolding today. During January and February, President Trump refused to acknowledge the threat of the coronavirus, despite warnings made by his intelligence community and health officials. Even after he was forced to take the virus seriously in late March, he has remained hesitant to use the federal government. For the last three years, Trump has consistently made moves to weaken an array of federal agencies. Why would he now disregard his contempt for government?
In the absence of a federal response, governors have had to fill the leadership void. No one has done so better than Cuomo. His efforts to respond to the unfolding disaster in New York – through increased testing, a demand for social distancing and working from home, an expansion of medical equipment and treatment facilities – has been Herculean. His daily news conferences have been reassuring to the public.
Some Democrats now regret that Cuomo did not run for president. Joe Biden may currently lead the delegate count, but he has run the most lackluster campaign of any front-runner in modern presidential history.
Cuomo has made his share of gaffes as governor. With the Buffalo Billion, he squandered three quarters of a billion dollars of state taxpayer money on building Elon Musk a vast solar panel gigafactory in Buffalo that thus far has created fewer jobs than promised.
More recently, he has fought with the state’s utilities over proposed natural gas pipelines, showing a failure to understand warnings from utilities that they cannot meet future energy demands. Indeed, Cuomo’s ham-handedness reflects the fact that he is often seen as difficult to deal with.
These faults pale in light of a genuine crisis that is being mishandled by a president who believes that the private, not the public, sector is better equipped to handle almost any event, including a pandemic. But sometimes a disaster can be managed only with the use of the federal government – a fact Hoover was disinclined to embrace, which was why Roosevelt, promising federal intervention, defeated him in a landslide in 1932.
The country is going to need a new New Deal after 2020; many Democrats believe Cuomo is the New York governor to see that it gets done.
Paul Alexander, a political writer, is the author of books about John Kerry, John McCain and Karl Rove.