I like counterfactual history, so how about this? What if then-New York governor Mario Cuomo had run for president in 1992? Steve Kornacki ponders the possibilities:
He was the most popular Democrat in America, he led the polls, the money was ready to go, the paperwork was signed, and the plane to NH was chartered with a 5 P.M. deadline looming.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
28 years ago this morning, it looked like Mario Cuomo was finally ready to say yes to a WH bid: pic.twitter.com/szijyliGYD
To me, 12/20/91 is underappreciated for its importance to modern political history. It's hard to convey how big Cuomo was back then, and how small the rest of the Democratic field seemed. There's obviously no way to ever know, but I believe he would have beaten Bill Clinton....— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
There are good arguments he would have lost -- Clinton was master pol, Cuomo might have been a tough sell to, etc. The reason my bet is on Cuomo is that he - unlike the rest of the field - would have been a consensus "safe" home for Dem voters when the Clinton scandals hit.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
Remember, the Gennifer Flowers allegations broke just weeks later. Clinton was reeling. One forgotten part of the story: The tapes included Clinton calling Cuomo "Mafioso." If Cuomo had been a candidate, this would have been a much bigger moment: pic.twitter.com/Z00pXYZt4B— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
Here's the thing: Imagine if Cuomo gets on the plane and runs and that he's able to beat Clinton, then capitalize on the dreadful economy and knock off Bush. Lots of ifs there, but all very plausible -- likely, in my view.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
If that happens....
If that happens, then I think that's it for Bill Clinton's WH hopes. He had already delayed his ambitions and the takeaway from 92 would be that the scandals were too much to overcome, reinforcing the Hart lesson on 88. He was also by then at risk of pushing his luck in Arkansas.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
If Cuomo runs and wins in '92, I don't know how the next 4/8 years play out. BUT everything I know about Mario Cuomo tells me we don't get any WH sex scandals and we don't get impeachment. And we don't have Bill and Hillary defining American politics for the next generation.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
I think back to when the Access Hollywood tape landed in '16 sometimes. There was a debate that Sunday night. Even R's were calling on Trump to quit. How did he respond? By holding a press conference with a bunch of Bill Clinton accusers. Fair or not, it was powerful insulation.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
To ask what might happen if Mario Cuomo got on that plane today in 1991 is to ponder what the last generation of American politics might have been like if Bill and Hillary Clinton were footnotes.— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
Thanks for digging this up, Jimmy! This is the coda to the drama of 12/20/91. Three months later, Bill Clinton comes to Mario Cuomo's NY after a shocking primary loss. Democrats are panicked that he's a sure general election loser, and he has two weeks to turn it around... https://t.co/axCoFC5KhO— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
Btw, how close did Cuomo come to saying yes? Two things I learned in writing my book last year:— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
1) Two days before the deadline, Cuomo called his political lieutenant with a plan for a "sneak attack" in Iowa, which was being conceded by the rest of the field to Tom Harkin: pic.twitter.com/aCCaJTvX87
2) On 12/20/91, as the world waited for his answer, Cuomo sat alone in his office and made a phone call to the one elite DC figure he truly trusted: Tim Russert, who knew his old boss as well as anyone and who probably sensed that he was looking for permission not run: pic.twitter.com/N0ABQes1kD— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 20, 2019
Back in February, 2014, I wrote a post in which I considered the possibility that if Hillary Clinton didn't run in 2016, current NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, son of Mario, might. I wondered if a man with what I called a messy personal life could get elected president. What was so messy about Andrew's personal life? Consider:
He lives with but isn't married to Food Network chef Sandra Lee, but even that's not the most interesting part.
The most interesting part, the deliciously spicy part is this: his ex-wife is a Kennedy. From 1990 to 2005 Andrew Cuomo was married to Kerry Kennedy, daughter of RFK and Ethel, niece of JFK and Teddy, cousin of the new U.S. ambassador to Japan and Maria Shriver, etc. Their marriage was a dynastic merger of the highest order and their subsequent divorce was messy and public.
So does it matter, in 2016? A divorced candidate isn't that big of a deal, but a divorce that's tied to the whole Kennedy drama? Kennedys are both competitive and tribal, and I've read that they're not particularly kind to former in-laws. Can you imagine a former Kennedy in-law in the White House? In fact, there would be actual Kennedys in the White House because Andrew and Kerry have three daughters together and the girls are just as much Kennedys as Caroline's and Maria's kids. It would all be mesmerizing to watch and I haven't even mentioned Arnold Schwarzennegger, who's also an (ex) governor and (almost) former Kennedy in-law. (Read the entire post here.)
In the pre-Trump era Andrew Cuomo's personal life was a little bit "out there" for a potential president. Now? Not even close.
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