Opinion

Dave’s big gamble

Andrew Cuomo may not be able to waltz into the governorship after all.

For the better part of the year, New York’s political world has operated under the assumption that Gov. Paterson had buried himself in a bottomless grave and that Attorney General Cuomo is a shoo-in for the job.

But while Cuomo still holds a commanding lead in the polls, the odds against Paterson aren’t quite as impossible as they once seemed — because the key question isn’t whether Paterson has a realistic shot at beating Cuomo in a Democratic primary. (He doesn’t.) It’s whether he can deter Cuomo from running.

And that’s where Paterson’s simple strategy is paying off.

The governor has done two things well: He’s demonstrated that he’s serious about running next year, and he’s driven a wedge between his administration and the Legislature. Both help his chances.

What Cuomo has to fear is a bruising primary against Paterson that alienates blacks and leaves him vulnerable in the general — or so wounded, and with so divided a party, that he can’t govern.

Despite President Obama’s awkward intervention, the racial politics are fraught. More important, though, is the leverage Paterson is gaining on policy.

As long as the governor was flailing around in a sea of incompetence, the rationale behind a Cuomo campaign was self-evident — a promise of capability and discipline.

But such vagueness no longer cuts it.

The governor seems to be finding his footing, aggressively maneuvering to keep the state’s finances afloat and attracting the most positive coverage since he took office. Voters, meanwhile, are far more anxious about the economy and their jobs than they were in 2006, when Eliot Spitzer swooped into office on a fuzzy message of change.

Cuomo may have concluded that it’s safer for him to minimize contact with reporters and stockpile contributions from Albany’s establishment interests. But it’s getting harder for him to avoid the question: What would he do as governor?

Confronted with a mid-year shortfall like the one bedeviling Paterson, would Cuomo defer payments to schools?

After all, he’d be taking office at the moment when the federal stimulus money runs out. The deficit in 2011 is on track to be six or seven times greater than the $3.2 billion gap that lawmakers have refused to close this year. We’re not talking cuts; it’s open-heart surgery.

Yet Cuomo’s been silent. Even with a 44-point lead, he apparently can’t stomach the risk of taking a stand on the direst fiscal crisis in generations. How, then, are voters supposed to trust him to have the courage to make the drastic cuts needed to rescue New York from a deficit of historic proportions?

Cuomo’s most fervid allies are the same entrenched forces raising a rumpus over Paterson’s unilateral budget measures. Cuomo may be seen as the more competent politician — but at least we know that Paterson is willing to pick a fight with the scandal-plagued Working Families Party and organized labor.

Cuomo’s fans will assure you that he’s playing it smart. When the next campaign-finance filings come out in mid-January, he’ll probably be sitting on $15 million to $20 million — making Paterson’s fund-raising haul look like a rounding error. That’s supposed to send the message that the Cuomo camp is ready to steamroll the governor if he refuses to scurry out of the way.

Paterson’s gains in the polls, in this reading, are just a temporary product of the governor’s recent advertising splurge; the governor’s ratings will head back down when next year’s budget war flares up.

Will they? A struggle over a budget gives Paterson another chance to distinguish himself from a Legislature in denial. He might even be able to spin his empty coffers as a badge of honor — proof of independence.

And if Cuomo has to use a war chest built up by special interests to knock off a governor who stood up to the same villains, he could face serious trouble in the general election.

Can Paterson stir up enough fear in Cuomo’s heart? It’s a long shot. But for Paterson, it sure beats quitting.

jacob.gershman@gmail.com