Just before the coronavirus outbreak hit New York, three-term Governor Andrew Cuomo was on his way to political oblivion for his disastrous ‘no bail’ criminal justice reform measure. With criminals being released time-after time following arrests for nonviolent offenses only to continue preying on the public, Cuomo was about as popular as a poisonous rattlesnake. But that was before the COVID-19 pandemic struck New York.
Now NYC alone has 25 percent of all coronavirus cases in the US and nearly half of the COVID-19 deaths. Cuomo has been on all TV news broadcasts every day ever since New York started on its way to becoming the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis. He has looked every bit of presidential on TV.
Cuomo has been decisive. He has been careful in criticizing Trump and has given the president credit when it was due. Where the ‘no-bail’ measure made him snake poison, his handling of COVID-19 has some Democrats wanting Cuomo to be their presidential candidate in stead of Joe ‘White Obama’ Biden.
Biden has been campaigning from his cellar, telling his limited podcast audience that Trump is to blame for the spread of the coronavirus, accusing the President of having been neglectful and of ignoring the warnings by scientists. Biden says that if he were president, he would be in the “situation room” every day with the generals and the top experts on infectious diseases.
Cuomo has some things in his favor. He is 15 years younger than Biden and doesn’t have the baggage of a son named Hunter. Were he to become the choice of the Democrats, Biden would not only support Cuomo, but he would campaign for him in Black churches and community centers. That means Cuomo would get over 90 percent of the Black vote. He would get 80 percent of the Jewish vote because liberal Jews would vote for the dogcatcher from Outhouse, Texas if he were the Democratic candidate. Cuomo would pick up large chunks of the Italian-American and Catholic votes. And a lot of mothers will vote for Cuomo because he has a face only a mother could love. But Cuomo would have to defend his disastrous ‘no bail’ reform measure, a tough nut to crack.
The New York governor is far more liberal than Biden, so he won’t have any trouble getting the supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to vote for him instead of sitting out the election with Biden as the Democratic candidate.
Trump’s popularity also has soared, but his Democratic opponent, whoever he is, will be sure to remind voters over and over again about how he backpedaled during the COVID-19 crisis. First there was that idiotic statement about coronavirus being nothing more than a “bad cold.” There was that stupid promise to reopen American businesses by Easter, making the ridiculous argument that more Americans would die by suicide if businesses remain shut than would be killed by the spreading pandemic. Trump also made the absurd accusation that the media was promoting social distancing as a way to hurt his reelection chances.
Then there was Trump’s announcement that he was considering quarantining New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut as COVID-19 “hot spots.” Actually that was Trump’s best idea, but he backpedaled on that one too. There is no telling how many New Yorkers have spread COVID-19 across the US. China was able to keep the coronavirus from spreading throughout the country by using the military to enforce a strict quarantine of Wuhan with its population of 11 million. But China is a dictatorship and its people are not protected by a Bill of Rights.
And his opponent, whether Biden or Cuomo, will have a field day reminding the voters that Dr. Fauci rebuked a number of Trump’s statements and said, “But I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down.” They’ll also have a field day with Fauci’s problem of disagreements, about which he said, “But when you’re dealing with the White House, sometimes you have to say things one, two, three, four times” before it sinks in.
Trump would have looked very presidential had he gone ahead with the quarantine and let those who claim that would be unconstitutional challenge him in court. He would also have looked very presidential had he grounded all civilian aircraft, including the planes of America’s airlines. Air travel has been spreading the virus across the country, so by grounding all civilian aircraft, that spread would have been slowed down.
Except for the backpedaling and some idiotic statements, Trump has handled the COVID-19 pandemic rather well. If only Trump would put his brain in gear before putting his mouth in motion. Democrats are blaming Trump for the problems experienced in applying for unemployment compensation and for and under the $2.2 Trillion coronavirus aid package. But the system is simply overwhelmed and that’s not Trump’s fault … and the Democrats damn well know it!
Cuomo replacing Biden is still a long shot. Far more significant to Trump’s reelection chances is not who he will be running against, nor how well or how poorly he handled the COVid-19 pandemic. “It’s the economy, stupid,” as Bill Clinton’s strategist James Carville coined it in 1992.
If anyone thinks that once the coronavirus crisis is over and done with, the economy will rebound instantly to where it was before the virus outbreak, they’ve been smoking too much funny tobacco. It will take months before that will happen. Some of the business closed down now will never reopen despite the $2 trillion aid package. If we are still in a recession in October, history tells us no president with the exception of Harry Truman has ever been reelected during bad economic times.
So Trump better get down on both knees and pray to God for the the economy to be on a strong rebound by September, or on January 20, 2021 even the dogcatcher from Outhouse, Texas could be the next president of the US.
Bowie takes a dem view of the landscape.
oops, Howie
There has only been one President in the modern era to get reelected after a bad showing in the 2nd Quarter, even if the 3rd Quarter started showing some improvement.
The President that got reelected despite a bad performing stock market was Harry Truman. Most of the pundits predicted him losing, but ole “Give em Hell Harry” could give a heck of a speech and he made train stops in every city and hamlet he could. Harry could connect with the working class voters far better than his adversary.
Bush-43 was a good man in my opinion, but he had a bad 2nd Quarter due to an adverse stock market reaction to a proposed change in the tax code. The change did not go thru and the market was in recovery by the end of the 3rd Quarter. Ironically, Bush-43 had predicted this very thing at the end of the first Gulf War when his popularity was soaring.
Trump has done his best to emulate Herbert Hoover, who got the sack from the voters for almost the same attitude and behavior. I agree with Howie’s prediction. A Zombie Corpse could likely beat Trump unless he stages a Bill Clinton comeback. The only question right now is how many Republicans will go down with the ship.
Actually Simple, I’d say that Trump is far more like good ole Harry S. He connects with the working class and common man far better that Quid Pro Joe, or Mr. Elitist, Mario Cuomo. As for a Zombie Corpse, there’s always Hillary in the wings. . . . .
Trump may very well connect with the working class and common man, but if millions of those very folks are still struggling to pay the rent, to make their mortgage payments, to make their car payments and put food on their tables, even a zombie corpse would trounce Trump in November.
personally I hope you are wrong. But as Biden has remarked “We don’t want to find a cure”. And the feeble minded candidate is correct if he wants to get elected.
Cuomo may have appeared decisive in news conferences, but his actual handling of the pandemic in New York has been abysmal, complicated by fellow Democrat Bill DE Blasio’s incompetence.
The rest of his policies are the old Democrat claptrap of open borders, universal health care, and I hate Trump.
It is of very dubious legality to stop travel within the country. There are several cases in point that have made it thru the Supreme Court. I am also not completely sure I agree with your basic premise that Cuomo has been decisive in his dealing with Covid-19. He has certainly been decisive about blaming other people for the spread despite the fact that he openly encouraged people to keep on keeping on in the early days (as did Trump). I believe he has been whining and petulant, but that’s just me. I do however fully agree with the basic assertion that there are a lot of movers and shakers in the Democrat-Socialist party who would MUCH RATHER see Cuomo at the head of the ticket rather than Senile Joe. I am not a huge Trump fan and I think he has done at least a decent job, maybe even a good job, of dealing with the Covid-19 situation. We will know a lot more in six weeks, when we have a better handle on the body count and the slope of the curve. IMHO it is way too early to be writing any political obits. Trump’s numbers have actually gone UP in the last few weeks, not down. Since all his supporters already supported him that means he is picking up some new acolytes from somewhere.
I think it is a mistake to judge Trump’s success in dealing with Covid-19 crisis by what you see on national news, which is highly slanted to the disastrous situation in New York and the East coast. The seriousness of Covid-19 in most of the country is far less, although local news does overplay it. Just New York accounts for 36% of all US cases and the cluster of five Northeastern states account for 49%. In contrast, Texas and California combined account for only 6%.
As for the differences in the areas infection rate, I continue to hear Rush Limbaugh try to understand why California, which also has a large number of persons coming and going, has far fewer Covid-19 cases than New York. The answer is obvious to me and not hard for most to figure out. The difference is the normal separation of the populations. New York and other Northeastern states have a high density of population and rely heavily on public transportation. In contrast the population in Texas and California, even in the most populated areas, is far more dispersed and relies on personal autos rather than public transportation for travel.
As a side note, Houston Tomorrow has been forced to cancel its meeting to discuss implementation of its plan to make it future city development policy to cram Houstonians into densely populated corridors and force walking and use of public transportation rather than autos for travel. Of course, this is to save the environment, but maybe not us. If you think this plan is crazy, which it is, the city planners and the current administration are on board with this thinking.
Yeah Don, about the time Anise Parker was coming into the mayors office we moved to a little house with a huge 1.25 acre lot in Braeburn. And then she rain taxed the whey out of us. My driveway doubled the impervious surface on the lot. They regulated the pool I added with commercial development rules because the lot was over an acre.
Then came the Chapter 42 rewrite that gave developers a path the densify neighborhoods. I got our civic association to add minimum lot sizes to counter that as my lot would have qualified for 38 unique 1,400sf plots on it!
All that greenie-weenie mess went out the window to try to pack as many utility meters (read that as franchise fees) as possible into every conceivable space. Zero lot lines became the new norm. What I found hilarious was the advent of mini parks the size of parking spaces being promoted in the newly gentrified areas closer in town.
Sold that jewel on the last day of January. Whew! Good luck former neighbors.