Three-term (1983 to 1994) Governor Mario Cuomo in 2007.
Larry McShane at the New York Daily News
reports:
Ever-eloquent Mario Cuomo, a son of Queens who rode his rhetorical gifts to three terms as New York governor and tantalized Democrats by flirting with a run for President, died Thursday, two sources close to the family said. He was 82.
Cuomo passed away six hours after his oldest son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was sworn-in to a second term in Manhattan. […]
Cuomo's speech at the 1984 convention is ranked as one of the great political addresses of the 20th Century. Some in the crowd were reduced to tears.
Cuomo, who received two curtain calls, passionately illustrated the distinction between the haves and the have nots in his "Two Cities" address.
"A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well," Cuomo said.
Here's a link that
speech.
More from Larry Celona, Carl Campanile and Leonard Greene:
According to President Bill Clinton, he was poised to nominate Cuomo for a spot on the High Court in 1993, but Cuomo took himself out of the running before Clinton had a chance.
‘’To be a justice of the Supreme Court, to sit there and listen, to study, to conclude and write and not have to worry about the polls, nothing would have been more perfect,’’ Cuomo told the New York Times years later. ‘’But on the other side, I think I have probably been in a better position to speak out on the issues.’’
And speak he did. And never did he do it better than at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco in a stirring speech that launched him into national prominence.
There, he stood up for the poor and downtrodden, extolling idealistic virtues in the days before “liberal” became a dirty word.
Still more below the fold.
Joseph Spector reports:
Cuomo is among the most iconic New York governors of the 20th century, known for his liberal views, soaring speeches and deeply held beliefs that made him among the most prominent Democrats of his time. His death came the same day as his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was inaugurated for a second term. […]
A father of five, Cuomo took great pride in his humble upbringing. He was the son of Italian immigrants who worked in his father's grocery store in Queens before becoming a politically active attorney and ascending to the governorship in 1983.
"I learned about our kind of democracy from my father. And I learned about our obligation to each other from him and from my mother," Cuomo said in his 1984 Democratic National Convention keynote address -- a speech that propelled him onto the national stage.
"They asked only for a chance to work and to make the world better for their children, and they -- they asked to be protected in those moments when they would not be able to protect themselves. This nation and this nation's government did that for them."