Mario Cuomo : Only Thing the Governor Doesn’t Have an Opinion on Is If To Run

Friday, Oct. 11, Mario Matthew Cuomo addressed a private breakfast at the Hotel Regency on Park Avenue for his big financial backers and long-time supporters. He was in fine form, bashing President George Bush’s rationale for a second term in the White House.

Using phrases from what has now become almost a stump speech, the governor of New York, consistently the center of presidential speculation, opened the door to his seeking the Democratic nomination.

Before the toast was cold, Cuomo ignited a firestorm of speculation in the Democratic Party. The fact he was seriously and openly pondering the presidency sent a bad case of the jitters through the six already announced candidates. Potential campaign contributions, in a tight economy, suddenly were frozen. Activists ready to commit to other campaigns decided to wait.

Amid mounting pressure to decide quickly, Cuomo has kept a steady course. In an extraordinary public dialogue and in the privacy of executive chambers, he has returned to his trial-lawyer roots, building the case for his candidacy and answering the arguments fellow Democrats and Bush could use against him.

At the same time as he builds his malpractice suit against the Bush Administration, the governor has been studying Democratic primary schedules and strategies. He also has been trying to decide whether the problems associated with the New York City and the state’s budget gaps this year, and even more red ink next year, would preclude his running.

In an hour-long conversation on Wednesday, Cuomo, 59, was alternately feisty and reflective--a combination familiar to the governor’s staff, veteran observers, his wife, Matilda, and their five children. He displayed his well-known talent for phrasemaking as he discussed the state of the nation, his view of foreign policy and some of the arguments he would employ if he decides to seek the White House.

Question: Governor, what are the lessons for the Democratic Party in last week’s election?

Answer: . . . . I don’t know why anybody has to strain to see what you need to do. We know what the problem is--everybody knows now. You don’t even need analysts to describe the problem politically: The middle class are hurting and they finally figured it out. They didn’t know it in 1984, when I screamed from a platform, “There are people in the gutter where the glitter doesn’t show.”

They said, “Bullshit. I can’t see it on my plate. I’m not fired. I’m doing good.” I said, “You can’t have these mortgages forever.” Nobody had knocked on their door and said, “Your mortgage is due.”

Now that’s all happened. Now they’re out of work. Everybody has a brother-in-law who’s out of work or one pink slip away from disaster. . . . Everybody has some relative who’s laid off by public service. Everybody knows that they’re downsizing all the businesses, that the corporations are paying for the excess of the ‘80s by tightening up, by insisting on quality, by firing people, by paying you less, by giving you three days work instead of five. They’re not doing it to the corporate executives, but they’re doing it to everybody else.

. . . . What’s the solution? Well, you’ve got to do some things for the middle class, and that part the politicians have figured out. Cut the Social Security tax--(Sen. Daniel Patrick) Moynihan, absolutely correct. Cut people with kids $350 bucks for each child--(Sen. Lloyd) Bentsen, (Sen. Bill) Bradley, absolutely correct. New rates for middle-class tax breaks--(Sen. Albert) Gore and (Rep. Thomas) Downey, absolutely correct. Yet that stuff’s nice, but it’s mostly “fairness” stuff. If you want to prod the economy, you’ve got to do . . . it holistically. . . .

Q: Were you surprised that the health-care issue had such a cutting edge in the Pennsylvania Senate race?

A: No. Health care is a metaphor now.

Q: For what?

A: For taking care of people’s real problems, like taking care of the middle class. Health care is a middle-class issue. People never understood that. I said that in my state five years ago . . . .

Q: If the GOP tries to reclaim its credibility with the middle class before the next election, will that be effective?

A: . . . . Every time they make a move like that, they confess error. Every time they say, let’s go get Saddam Hussein, they confess they didn’t get him in the war. Every time they say they need a growth plan, they confess they were wrong about this economy.

So I think the contest will be: Can we get out there fast enough--the Democrats--with a holistic approach that is reasonably likely to be accepted by your own Democratic Congress. Or can they get out there with a plan fast--jamming your Democratic Congress--and get it into a position where they either have to accept the Bush plan or say no to growth. That’s the way this is going to come out.

The Republican analysts haven’t figured it out this well because they’re always a little bit behind, but they’re the best borrowers I’ve ever seen. . . .

Q: On foreign policy, governor, did the Democrats give Bush a free ride on foreign policy? Is he untouchable there?

A: He’s more vulnerable there than he is on economic policy.

Q: Where are the Republicans vulnerable on foreign policy?

A: Everywhere. First of all, there is no foreign policy nowadays--there’s economic policy. This is a global economy. If you fall behind the Japanese and the Germans, you’ve just lost a foreign-policy race. You can’t be dominant with military might and diplomacy; that’s the way we did it for 40 years. But you can’t be powerful with just that--ask the Russians. . . . . . . . .

No. 2: What foreign policy? The best thing we’ve done for 10 years is win three wars. I describe Grenada as a war against 44 guys in sneakers.

Noriega and Panama: They killed Panamanians, killed some of our people. For what? So they could cop a plea with Noriega. What happened to the death penalty and Noriega? I thought you said death penalty was the solution to all our serious crimes, George. How come you didn’t charge him?

Third war, Iraq. You handled the arranging of world powers very, very deftly. Of course, it was easy when you gave them billions of dollars--like the Syrians. But still, you’ve got them all in one place. I congratulate you for that. You won the war--I congratulate you for that.

But the prelude to the war was a disaster. You did everything but beg for this war with Iraq. You created a trap, and then you stepped into it. You did everything. You even allowed them to build up a nuclear facility.

I remember when the Israelis bombed Osirak. I was one of the few politicians in America that issued a release saying this is the right thing, and the American government is wrong for criticizing it. Where the hell would we have been if the Israelis hadn’t bombed the Osirak facility in 1981?

. . . . (During the Senate debate on the Gulf War, I would have said) I would take the Nunn resolution and extend it this way: “Of course, we’re not going to rule out war. We don’t think it’s time for war. We think you should try sanctions now. If you have to go to war, you go to war eventually. And if you do, you must defang Saddam--because it was unforgivable to kill Iraqis and kill some of your own people--or have them killed--and not get rid of this guy.”

Q: He’s still there. Bush let him out of the box.

A: Absolutely. And everybody knows that. And this is another part of confessing error when he says we’re going to get that Saddam Hussein. Hey, they want to play cheap tricks with commercials--how about showing a commercial of Saddam Hussein reviewing his troops? Congratulations, George.

Q: I’ll tell you what, I’ll play (GOP consultant) Roger Ailes: Under Mario Cuomo, New York state’s credit rating has fallen dramatically. Only one other state has a worse credit rating. Response?

A: You don’t know what a credit rating means. If credit rating means assurance that the paper will be paid on time and in full--nobody in America has a better paper than we do. We are the oldest financial institute. Banking started here. We’re the only state, which I’m aware of, that had a chance to walk away from its paper--1975, the New York City paper. And we stood behind it and made it good. Our laws are tougher. We’re one of the best investments in the world.

Ask the Japanese, who are pumping a fortune into New York City. So what are you telling us: That Japanese don’t know how to invest? You’re begging them for money to fill your deficit every year. We get it voluntarily from big companies who invest in New York City. I’m growing faster in investments by the Japanese than California. . . .

Q: Picture Brian Watkins (the out-of-town youth killed by a gang). The argument: Under Cuomo, New York streets are among the meanest in the nation.

A: That’s because you, George (Bush), declared war on drugs and then surrendered. This is your issue, George. When President Reagan said, in 1980, to the people of my city and my state: ‘Is your life better now than it was four years ago?’ was he not telling us that he would save us from those problems if he replaced Carter?

Well, I ask you, President Bush, do the people of New York City now think that, thanks to you and Reagan, their life is better than it was 12 years ago?

They have all the problems they had then, and you have created worse ones. They have new social diseases that didn’t even exist when you took over. They have a homelessness we’ve never seen before. They have crack and you declared war on drugs, George--was that because it was none of your business that you declared war on it?

. . . . What are you telling me, George, the city doesn’t belong to you? Then why the hell did you declare war on drugs if you didn’t count New York City? Where did you fight the war? In Texas? Their problem is worse than ours. Maybe in Kennebunkport. (Phone rings) Maybe that’s Bush--he heard me. . . . .

Q: Top Democrats in California all grant Mario Cuomo tremendous oratorical or political skills. Their fear is, if he runs, he will be perceived as a Northern liberal.

A: What is a liberal?

Q: I don’t know, but that’s the image. How do you get around the image problem. F.D.R. was a Northern liberal, wasn’t he?

A: I have no idea. I don’t know what you do about people who are stupid enough to be seduced by one word. Who’s dumb enough to cast a vote on the basis of one word--liberal? . . . I hear even some Democratic candidates saying, “Well, this is interesting. If he comes in I’ll be able to compare myself to him--he’s a liberal.”

You know, if you started measuring the actions taken by the candidates in this race and my actions, it’s going to be very hard for them to find any distinctions that would give them an advantage.

Take welfare--that is a convenient shibboleth, or they can make it into a shibboleth if you want to somehow separate yourself from the common perception of liberal. And you will find candidates, I think rather carelessly--I hope it’s carelessly and not cynically--saying things like, “We shouldn’t have people on welfare forever.” Well, in my state, nobody’s on welfare forever; the average is two years. And those are all women and children. And this talk about they should all be required to work--yeah, I wish we could get them all jobs. We’re all for that. That’s no distinction between New York super liberal--that’s all crap. And if ever I were a candidate and we had the opportunity on a platform to make that clear, we would bury some of these people.

Q: What are you going to do.

A: . . . . I haven’t even tried to make the decision yet. I am spending all my time gathering facts. I never did that before. . . . . I never looked at primary dates. I never gave any thought to what the schedule would be like, how much money I would need, how I would go about getting the staff.

I never did any of that until three weeks ago, or whenever it was that I had a fund-raiser, and some of my people, who have been with me for 17 years . . . said, “Mario, we’ve given you money all these years. We love you. We think you’re great, We hate politics. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in it at all. So what about the presidency?”

. . . . I said I haven’t even talked to Matilda about it. . . . Then all that followed with the media, etc. That was the first time I began the process of looking at this thing analytically. . . .

Q: Well how long are you going to dither on this decision?

A: My favorite piece of mail . . . is a thing done in block letters from somebody, and it says the following: There’s a picture of me playing basketball or, actually, in a sweat suit: “Stop Jogging, Run. Signed, God”

Q: Are you leaning in any direction?

A: Upright. Always upright.