Cuomo Asks Media to Stay With the Campaign Issues

New York Gov. Mario Cuomo on Friday night discussed his meeting earlier this week with former Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart and told a meeting of radio executives in Orange County that the media should “please consider what you are doing here” when asking personal questions of presidential candidates.

Cuomo told more than 150 people attending the National Assn. of Broadcasters’ radio, management and programming conference at the Anaheim Hilton that he and Hart did not plan campaign strategy in their meeting Wednesday. But he said they did discuss Hart’s admission the day before on ABC’s “Nightline” that Hart had committed adultery.

“Would you say to a candidate who happened to be a Roman Catholic . . . ‘Do you use birth control devices?’ ” Cuomo asked the broadcasters. “Would you ask a candidate, ‘Do you ever despair?’ I mean, where would you stop?”

Hart withdrew from the race after allegations that he spent the weekend with a Miami model.

Cuomo, who spoke and answered questions for more than an hour Friday night, continued to insist that he is not running for the Democratic presidential nomination, although he talked about subjects ranging from arms control to the nomination of federal appellate Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court.

Regarding Cuomo’s decision not to run for president, he said he decided the nomination process was “so long and so tedious and so demanding” that he could not do it while also fulfilling his duties as governor.

Cuomo said he is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the conservative Bork, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin next week. But he said that should the senators learn that Bork held preconceived ideas of how he would rule on abortion, civil rights or other controversial issues, they would have the right to deny confirmation.

“If he says it (an opinion) in advance, he ought not to be on the bench,” Cuomo said.

Of his upcoming trip to the Soviet Union, Cuomo said if asked, he would give his views to Soviet officials on the Jewish “refuseniks” and the “incredible, almost incalculable sums” being spent on arms by the United States and the Soviet Union.

He said that while the two nations are on “the edge of a new period” of arms control, “we must not let our guard down” or “tempt them with our weakness.”

Cuomo, 55, was a possible Democratic presidential contender until he pulled himself out of the running last February. Still, his name has continued to surface as someone who might be drafted at next summer’s Democratic Convention, and he has not ruled out that possibility.

Even former President Nixon said last week he regarded Cuomo as the “front-runner” because “he appeals to the hearts of Democrats rather than their heads.”

In his last appearance in California, Cuomo, who is known for his oratory, underwhelmed a group of 800 Democrats at a dinner in Los Angeles for the Center for Law in the Public Interest. The dinner, held days before Cuomo announced he would not seek the presidential nomination, was variously described as “patronizing” and a “missed opportunity.”

Several prominent Democrats who attended that session said the governor chose to give an uplifting patriotic speech rather than to give his views on substantial issues, even though the crowd of public officials, powerful lawyers, entertainment figures, philanthropists, publishing executives and fund-raising professionals expected the latter.

At one point on that previous occasion, Cuomo said: “Lift your lamp, lady. Teach us need for one another. Teach us the truth of love, the wisdom of love.”

“He bombed,” said one Democrat who attended the dinner.

Attending the convention in Anaheim were owners of major chains of radio stations.