At campaign stops, voters still clamor for his autograph and chant his name. New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's eloquence has never deserted him, but fewer people appear to be listening. Forget the polls that show him just even with or trailing behind his Republican opponent, who six months ago was a political unknown. Even within Cuomo's campaign, there is dread that the man who for the last 12 years has carried the liberal torch in a conservative age may be snuffed out by the conservative, anti-incumbent gale.
Cuomo's 12 years as governor and his prominence on the national stage, which in a different time would be assets, have become liabilities instead. Even Cuomo has called his long term of office "that albatross around my neck," and like myriad other Democrats from Bill Clinton on down, he finds himself torn between his liberal base and a middle class grown weary of government spending, high crime and social programs for the poor. "What the governor has to do is redefine himself, and that's hard to do after 12 years," says Lee Miringoff, director of Marist College's Institute of Public Opinion.
It's the economy. Last week, Cuomo, ever Hamlet on the Hudson, said he was "trying to figure out why" the nation and his state seem to be in such a sour mood. One answer is that Bill Clinton's mantra in 1992 still works in New York: It's the economy. Cuomo's challenger, state Sen. George Pataki, has been pounding home his message that Cuomo's tax policies have cost New York jobs and driven away business while welfare and other social programs have not put people to work. Cuomo promises to cut $1.5 billion in state taxes; Pataki's answer is a proposal to cut $5.6 billion in personal income taxes over four years, but he has not spelled out how he would do so when a sluggish state economy is eating into Albany's revenues.
Between 1989 and 1992, the state lost nearly 575,000 jobs, about 7 percent of the total; between 1990 and 1993, 10 percent of the state's clerical jobs were lost to new technology. Manufacturing jobs continue to disappear, and the state has recovered only 150,000 jobs, most of them upstate.
That hasn't helped Cuomo much. Upstate New York is more conservative and Republican than New York City. Meanwhile, the city's economy is still lagging, creating an especially sour political mood in the Democrats' stronghold.
Pataki, who favors the death penalty, also has been able to exploit the fact that Cuomo, who calls the death penalty "an abomination," is out of step with a majority of New Yorkers on the emotional issue of crime. Violent crime in New York rose 31 percent between 1983 and 1990, but while it has declined by about 9 percent over the last three years, New York voters do not feel safer. Cuomo has nearly doubled the number of prison cells to almost 30,000, built 30 new prisons since 1983 and attempted to pass a three-strikes-and-you're-in bill that would have meant life without parole for three-time felons. But Cuomo's support for prison building and tougher sentencing have angered liberal legislators.
On social issues, too, Cuomo's record is somewhat less liberal than his reputation. Mitchell Moss of New York University's Urban Research Center says the governor has tried to preserve programs such as road building, nursing home care and school aid that primarily benefit the middle class. But while Cuomo has talked a good game about welfare reform, the state's welfare rolls grew 32 percent between 1989 and 1993, and 1 in every 11 New Yorkers -- 1.6 million people -- receives some form of welfare.
But Cuomo is not simply running against his own liberal reputation: He also is trying to buck the shift of people and political power from New York's cities to its suburbs. He won 72 percent of the vote in New York City last time -- but that was only 27 percent of the state vote. One difficult test will be whether Cuomo can capture half the black vote in New York City, where there are 450,000 registered African-American Democrats.
In the end, the key to victory may be held not by Cuomo or Pataki but by Tom Golisano, a self-made businessman and Ross Perot supporter from Rochester. Cuomo and his lieutenants hope the newcomer will save them by draining off Pataki votes upstate. That, in fact, may be Mario Cuomo's best hope.
