Gov. Cuomo and all-but-certain Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio are on a collision course certain to explode next year — over taxes, class warfare, charter schools, and Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital — if de Blasio is elected mayor, insiders agree.
What’s more, the widely made claim that Cuomo and de Blasio will, despite their differences, get along well because they’re old friends and political allies dating back to de Blasio’s days working for Cuomo, then the federal housing secretary, is false because the two “have had serious tensions over many years,’’ said a source who knows both men.
“Things aren’t all love and kisses between the two of them. There’s a lot of history there,’’ said the source.
While aides to Cuomo insist the relationship with de Blasio is close and supportive dating back to their work together the late 1990s, the source said Cuomo had done little to help advance de Blasio’s rise from City Council member to public advocate — even when that help was desired and could have been important.
De Blasio’s left-of-center campaign platform, which has frightened many in the city’s business community, calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, more subsidies for the State University’s money-losing and, in the state’s view, unneeded Long Island College Hospital, and, in a position favored by the United Federation of Teachers, hostility toward charter schools.
By contrast, Cuomo, elected as a “moderate’’ Democrat in 2010 and facing re-election next year, claims to favor tax cuts and efforts to reverse the state’s notorious unfriendly-to-business climate, while backing the state Health Department’s goal of eliminating unneeded hospital beds.
Cuomo has also infuriated the UFT by championing education reform, having just recently urged the “death penalty’’ for failing public schools.
“If de Blasio is mayor the sparks will fly in January when he tries to get his agenda including a tax hike on the wealthy passed the governor and the Legislature and finds he can’t,’’ said a longtime lobbyist who represents New York City interests.
Added another Albany insider, “De Blasio is in the Barack Obama, left-of-center mold, while Cuomo has presented himself as a Bill Clinton-type more moderate Democrat. It’s definitely a clash of claimed philosophies.’’
Ironically, Republican mayoral candidate Joseph Lhota, whom Cuomo once chose to head the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is widely viewed as closer to the governor’s positions than de Blasio is.
Nevertheless, Cuomo is certain to quickly endorse de Blasio should the Board of Elections find he cleared the 40 percent primary vote hurdle needed to avoid a runoff election with former city Comptroller Bill Thompson.