Who’s afraid of a city Comptroller Spitzer? The governor, that’s who.
Gov. Cuomo has remained publicly neutral in the race between Eliot Spitzer and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer because his own private polling data shows the hooker-loving former governor will likely win on Tuesday — and he fears retribution from the notoriously vindictive “steamroller,” insiders told The Post.
“The governor didn’t feel his endorsement would turn the tide for Stringer and felt that the danger in further angering Spitzer wasn’t worth the risk,” said a Cuomo administration source.
Cuomo, who often employs his own polling firm to gauge public sentiment, was told that Spitzer — whom he privately opposes as a likely “disaster’’ for the city and state — was leading Stringer by “the high single digits.”
Sources close to Cuomo say he fears the notoriously aggressive and egocentric Spitzer would use the position of comptroller to settle old political scores with the governor, second-guess the new mayor, and wage a public-relations war against Wall Street, the single greatest source of revenue to the state.
Some even think Spitzer, a former attorney general, might launch a Democratic primary challenge next year against current AG Eric Schneiderman.
The governor’s claim last week that he was remaining neutral in both the mayoral and comptroller primaries because of a “general rule” of not endorsing appeared laughable to many — because he made it out to Buffalo to endorse Mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic primary there.
While upstate, the governor also rejected Mayor Bloomberg’s comment that Bill de Blasio was running a racially charged campaign in New York City and spoke glowingly of the public advocate’s multiracial family.
What’s more, last year Democrat Cuomo even backed two incumbent Republican senators who faced tough electoral challenges because they backed his measure legalizing same-sex marriages.
And even as Cuomo backed Brown, he refused to endorse Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner in her Democratic primary — despite having picked her as co-chair of the state party.
Unlike Brown, Miner has been critical of some of the governor’s fiscal policies.
“The only uniform policy that Cuomo has on endorsements is ‘what’s good for him,’ ” said a prominent Democratic consultant.
A top Cuomo aide appeared over the weekend to endorse his wife’s “thanking” of Bloomberg for having “just elected Bill de Blasio as mayor’’ by claiming in a newly published interview that de Blasio was running a “racist” campaign.
State Operations Director Howard Glaser, a close Cuomo friend, retweeted those comments by his wife, lobbyist Karen Hinton, but when asked if he agreed with them, he said sarcastically,
“I would respond, but my dog just peed on the floor and I have to clean it up.”