When Facebook Becomes Blogging

It may be because he gets free publicity from his brother on CNN, but Andrew Cuomo is looking more and more like the great hero of this moment. He was a non-starter as a candidate in 2020 because he was personality who can't make politics look like anything but politics (remind you of someone from 2016?), but at a moment like this, this is the chief executive you want. Had he a chance in 2020 I'd have given him a very serious look. His father, Mario, should have been President, could have been President, would have been President, but he got cold feet in both 1988 and 1992. No politician is perfect, and Cuomo clearly had dirt around him that he did not want exposed. He clearly lacked Bill's endless stomach to have his dirty laundry aired in public, but the same endless capacity for battle was probably related to the Clinton capacity for selling out all the people they claimed to speak for. Cuomo never seemed to do that. He was a liberal in the FDR tradition, and like his son, he made government work. And good Bill Clinton was, Mario Cuomo was a better, more charismatic speaker even than Clinton. He's the missing link between JFK/LBJ on the one hand, and Obama on the other. Had Cuomo been been President instead of Clinton, maybe he would have lost in 96, but if he won, the Gingrich revolution would have been cut off at the knees. He never would have compromised on Glass-Steagall, he never would have given up the healthcare battle, or given in on welfare reform. And now, here we are. 

I find this speech soothing, because it shows that it didn't, it doesn't, have to be this way for America. I don't know when it will be possible to change course, but it is possible. And one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, it can be done.