Gov. Andrew Cuomo has entered his sixth year in office frantically driven to increase his record-low approval ratings, obsessed with defeating Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017, and “edgily nervous’’ about US Attorney Preet Bharara’s next move, sources close to the governor have told The Post.
Cuomo was also described as “desperately’’ seeking allies within his own Democratic Party to be part of an anti-de Blasio coalition, after having alienated many of them by his “bullying’’ and “contemptuous’’ treatment.
And the governor, the sources said, has begun displaying what many of his own staffers see as “peculiar’’ bursts of energy, in which he abruptly shifts gears on key public-policy positions in hopes of increasing his popularity: first battling and then embracing the teachers unions, opposing and then backing a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and refusing and then granting pardons to thousands of convicted criminals.
“He’s like a chicken without a head; you never know which direction he’s going to turn, and he’s frantic about getting his [polling] numbers up,’’ said a prominent Democrat who has known Cuomo for years.
The sources, all Democrats, also talked at length about what they said was the governor’s escalating penchant in speeches and press releases for self-laudatory, over-the-top rhetoric, which may have reached its apex New Year’s Day in an email to thousands of followers of his campaign committee’s website.
“Five years ago, New York faced daunting challenges — a lagging economy, massive job losses, yawning budget deficits and a state government mired in gridlock,’’ Cuomo began, in what was widely seen as implicit criticism of his two Democratic predecessors, Govs. David Paterson and Eliot Spitzer.
“Today, we are a state that is transformed and once again the progressive capital of the world,’’ Cuomo continued, failing to mention the convictions on corruption charges of the former leaders of the “progressive’’ capital’s Legislature, the state’s bottom-of-the-barrel rating as a place to do business, and the state’s massive population losses — more than 500,000 people since he took office.
Quipped a prominent Democrat: “Why’d he stop with ‘capital of the world’? Why not the ‘progressive capital of all the galaxies’?”
Some Democrats used words like “weird’’ and “embarrassing’’ to describe Cuomo’s relatively recent policy of issuing press releases urging the public to be careful as a routine snowstorm or other seasonally inclement weather is forecast.
Democrats have even begun joking about what overstated claims they expect Cuomo to make during the traditional State of the State Address on Jan. 13 — mentioning such possibilities as “New York is now corruption-free,” “I’ve ended global warming,” and “I can be mayor and the governor at the same time.”
Cuomo, meanwhile, was described by one associate as “edgily nervous’’ about the next move to be made by federal prosecutor Bharara, whose successful prosecutions of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) and startling admonition to “stay tuned” has led to widespread speculation that the governor is his next target.
Nassau County Democrats, increasingly confident they’ll win an upcoming special state Senate election, dropped plans to urge Cuomo to hold off on setting April 19 — presidential primary day — as the date to fill the now-vacant Skelos seat.
The Democrats had initially feared an expected heavy turnout of Republicans in the presidential primary — in contrast to the predicted light turnout for the Democratic primary, which Hillary Clinton will likely win easily — would favor the GOP candidate for the Senate.
But “we’re no longer concerned about the date because we now expect that this campaign will be very well-funded and that we will win,’’ a senior Nassau Democrat told The Post.
County Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs has urged party activists to pick a candidate with a “clear rationale” to make the race — and that’s expected to be Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor who won the conviction of former Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada (D-Bronx).
Nervous Republicans, tainted by the Skelos corruption scandal and what many believe are two widening corruption probes involving other Nassau County officials, had hoped to field Assemblyman Brian Curran, but GOP sources say he’s reluctant to enter the race.
Republicans hold a bare one-vote majority in the Senate, and a Democratic victory in Skelos’ long-under-GOP-control district would be seen as signaling a looming Democratic takeover.