When I first started covering Albany politics, Governor George Pataki was the man in charge.\u00a0 But he was, by and large, a status quo kind of guy.<\/p>\n
There was plenty of money to spend, so he spent it.\u00a0 He seemed eager to satisfy everyone with a shot of state cash, from the unions to the environmental groups, from county leader to the medical industry.<\/p>\n
He didn’t invent the systemic overspending and debt that now define state government, but he certainly joined the party.<\/p>\n
His immediate successors, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, took serious stabs at changing all that.\u00a0 Where Pataki partnered more or less with the legislature, Spitzer went to war.<\/p>\n
And after his implosion, Paterson took an even more militant posture, his hand forced by the economic downturn and the collapse of Wall Street.<\/p>\n
Paterson, in turn, saw his political fortunes unravel, as he was attacked by everyone on the political landscape.\u00a0 It was death by a thousand cuts, only these cuts were big, ugly knife-fight wounds.<\/p>\n
And now, in 2010, it appears that another Democratic titan will enter the arena.\u00a0 Andrew Cuomo says he’s coming to Albany to reinvent state government.<\/p>\n
“We will be taking on very powerful special interests, which have much to lose,” Cuomo said. “We must change systems and cultures long in the making.”<\/p>\n
For the time being, it appears that Cuomo will run practically speaking as an independent, unfettered by close party loyalties or by reliance on unions and other big special interests.<\/p>\n
If he pulls it off — and so far the Republican Party seems unlikely to challenge him seriously — Cuomo may arrive in the state capital with more maneuvering room, more flexibility, and fewer favors owed.<\/p>\n
He will also bring with him the powerful heft of the Cuomo dynasty.<\/p>\n
Will that formula be enough?\u00a0 Will he be able to wring significant concessions from the public employee unions?\u00a0 Will industry groups accept modest tax increases?<\/p>\n
No New York City bookie would give him better than fifty-fifty odds.<\/p>\n
But what is certain is that at present Cuomo represents state government’s best shot at coming out of this mess without a full-scale, systemic collapse.\u00a0 In doing so, he won’t just step out of his father’s shadow — indeed, Mario Cuomo was one of the architects of the current fiscal crisis.<\/p>\n
He will take his place as one of the great New York governors, a reformer on par with the Roosevelts and Nelson Rockefeller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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