Oratory has returned to Albany.
Andrew Cuomo took the oath of office as New York’s 56th governor yesterday — thereupon delivering as riveting, and as idealistic, a public address as has been heard in the Capitol since the last time his father, Mario, mesmerized a crowd.
And he left no doubt that he is his father’s son in this critical respect: Andrew Cuomo firmly believes in the power of government to improve the lives of ordinary people.
And that, he said, is his challenge.
During the campaign, he said, “I saw up close and personal the suffering that our people are facing and the devastating toll that this economy has taken. And it cannot be underestimated.”
He spoke forcefully and eloquently about the need to reforge a connection between government and common folk: “Where are the people in Albany?” he asked. “Where are the people in the Capitol? That is a profound absence.”
And so yesterday he ordered the removal of physical barriers that have stood between the people and their Capitol for years — terming the move a “symbol of a new approach.”
The building is in fact a monument to a less cynical age, when faith in government ran deep. Its transformation into a physical “bunker” or “fort,” as Cuomo called it, symbolized the estrangement of everyday New Yorkers from their elected leaders.
The result, he said, has been a deficit-proliferation: New York, said Cuomo, faces “a competence deficit and an integrity deficit and a trust deficit.”
So true.
And closing those gaps will not only be Cuomo’s self-assigned mission — it will be the benchmark against which his incumbency will be measured.
“I don’t believe the Democrats or the Republicans created the problems,” he said.
Fair point: Sloth, corruption, venality and incomptence wear no political labels in Albany.
But they rule the day — and Cuomo gets it.
“Too often government responds to the whispers of the lobbyists before the cries of the people,” he said. “Our people feel abandoned by government, betrayed and isolated, and they are right.”
And here is where Cuomo departed from the reality that will define his life during the months and years to come.
His overwhelming electoral victory this fall, he said, “was not about electing Andrew Cuomo, [it was a] mandate for change that the people of this state endorsed overwhelmingly.”
Would that this were so.
After all, New Yorkers returned to Albany establishment hacks and special-interest pleaders like State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver. The continued presence of these mandarins would complicate anyone’s reform agenda from Day One.
DiNapoli is a long-time Silver acolyte.
Silver, an icon of the special interests, remains in firm control of the lower chamber, his caucus numbers only slightly depleted. Which means the Assembly can be counted on to stand in the way of any meaningful positive change.
Nor is it clear that the Senate, now once again under Republican control, will be any better.
Also standing in the way is Cuomo’s successor as AG, Eric Schneiderman.
Schneiderman spent a dozen years in the service of the Senate Democratic leadership, of which he was a part. He personally sponsored the big 2009 tax hike — and remains opposed to the property-tax cap that’s integral to Cuomo’s reform agenda.
And there’s Schneiderman’s ongoing close ties to the teachers unions, the health-care cartel and trial lawyers, to name a few — all of whom would love to derail Cuomo’s reform plans before they even get under way.
Cuomo plans to offer more specifics about his agenda soon, beginning with his State of the State address Wednesday.
This is where the work of government will begin.
“I believe the decisions that we make, the decisions my colleagues make, this year will define the trajectory of this state for years to come,” said Cuomo.
Speeches, as Mario Cuomo often said, are part of the “poetry of government” — the cajolery that is so vital to what Andrew yesterday termed “the potential power of the governor . . . to mobilize the people.”
“Only the people’s voice can silence the calls of the special interests in the halls of the Capitol,” he said.
He’s off to a good start.
We wish him well.