The GOP onslaught won’t kick in unless Cuomo wins the nomination. First he’ll have to survive his own party’s friendly fire. Aides to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton have already begun referring to Cuomo as “the last of the Great Society candidates.” Clinton, 45, will portray Cuomo, 59, as resistant to new ideas-a keeper of the old liberal flame. Cuomo in turn assails Clinton’s proposal for national service as too costly, and his “tough love” approach to welfare as veiled racism. Sen. Tom Harkin, who would lose union support if Cuomo entered the race, mocks Cuomo as “a candidate who devotes as much time talking to either himself or the heavens.”
The risk for the GOP is that the Democrats may exhaust all the promising lines of attack during the primaries, with Cuomo emerging “bloody but unbowed,” says Ed Rollins, who managed Reagan’s ‘84 victory. Rollins warns Bush against running a replay of the mudslinging ‘88 campaignbut the case against Cuomo is right out of the anti-Dukakis playbook.
Cuomo governs a state that the rest of the country loves to hate. Bush’s anti-Cuomo slogan will go something like this: “He’ll do to you what he did to New York.” Cuomo will use California Gov. Pete Wilson as a human shield, pointing out that rising budget deficits and declining services also occur under Republican leaders. But GOP researchers have assembled damaging statistics: a violent crime rate that is 54 percent over the national average, the country’s highest Medicaid costs and bloated public-sector unions.
Cuomo swears that he’s not touchy. But a conversation with him can be a minefield (page 33). If Cuomo runs, a Democratic consultant predicts the press will run a Cuomo Watch: “Where did he blow up today?” Cuomo accuses the press of quoting him out of context. But his bullying insistence that he “never said” there should be territorial concessions to Iraq, or called Dan Quayle “Danny the Cabin Boy,” can easily be turned into ads that make him look like a dissembler. Republicans say research into Cuomo’s family life reveals no skeletons. But GOP operatives may not be above hinting at Mafia connections, if only to provoke Cuomo.
It’s always risky to fight the last war, but the GOP is ready. The names Arthur Shawcross and Gary McGivern mean nothing today. But they could become household names. McGivern is a cop-killer who was granted clemency by Cuomo. Shawcross murdered two children, was sentenced in 1972 (long before Cuomo was elected) and later pardoned by a Cuomo-chosen parole board. Shawcross went on to kill 10 women. Many Republicans recoil at making these cases an issue, since virtually every governor in the country could be vulnerable. But Craig Shirley, a GOP consultant who was part of the team that showcased Horton, is not squeamish. “Shawcross is white; he looks like a stockbroker,” says Shirley. “Put him on TV, and he proves Willie Horton was not about race.”
Cuomo may well prove an elusive target. He is refashioning himself away from predictable liberalism. Indeed, his rhetoric in the past has always been to the left of his governing. His economic-growth package calls for a reduction in the capital-gains tax and probusiness investment incentives. He favors cutting entitlement programs. Cuomo, an opponent of capital punishment, has even criticized Bush for not threatening former Panamanian president Manuel Noriega with the death penalty. Unlike most Democrats, Cuomo is at home talking about values and morals. “That’s why he’s so good, " says former drug czar William Bennett. “A lot of his message is dead center in the turf we have owned.” The challenge for Cuomo is not to lose his message in the cross-fire. The test will come early. If he runs, he must win the New Hampshire primary-now less than three months away-or he’ll be back in Albany, another political myth cut down to size.
