We are all familiar with the Spider-Man Doctrine: With great power comes great responsibility. But New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as steward of the nation’s fourth-largest state for the last seven years, has used his immense power extraordinarily irresponsibly, and it’s long past time for him to go.
Cuomo, though nominally a Democrat, has spent his entire tenure in office thwarting progressives, propping up Republicans, and coddling the one percent at the expense of the millions of New Yorkers just struggling to make it. And his failings have had national implications, too: Rather than lead the resistance to Trump’s agenda, he’s cowered before the president.
A complete list of Cuomo’s sins would be impossibly long to recount in full, so instead we’ll offer some of his darkest lowlights:
That last bullet point alone could keep us occupied for days: Cuomo’s unholy alliance with the GOP has prevented passage of bills to expand voting rights, protect access to abortion, establish a state-level DREAM Act, implement genuine ethics reform, and so much more. And it’s been a deliberate choice, too, because Cuomo is simply hostile to progressive aims, and with Republicans in charge of a key choke-point in the legislature, he’s never had to sign liberal laws that would make him uncomfortable.
Fortunately, New Yorkers have a much better choice in the primary on September 13, which is why Daily Kos is proud to endorse Cynthia Nixon for governor. While you likely know her from her starring role on “Sex and the City,” Nixon is also a longtime activist and full-throated progressive who truly gets why Andrew Cuomo’s governorship has been such a long-term disaster. She supports everything he does not, including legislation that would guarantee universal health coverage for all New Yorkers, a comprehensive plan to combat climate change, and a program that would provide licenses to all eligible drivers, regardless of immigration status.
Please give $3 to true progressive Cynthia Nixon and help finally turn New York blue!
Nixon has a deep grasp of the issues and a keen political understanding—she's no celebrity running a vanity campaign. She does, however, know that she can use her fame to call attention to issues that Cuomo has long ignored. And she’s not merely rattling off a progressive wish-list. Among her most striking stances are her views on marijuana:
“There are a lot of good reasons for legalizing marijuana, but for me, it comes down to this: We have to stop putting people of color in jail for something that white people do with impunity.”
To knowledgeable activists, this might not sound like a startling statement. But it's fair to say that those most victimized by these unjust laws are unused to hearing powerful white people address this reality—Cuomo’s certainly never spoken out in this manner.
And Nixon’s already had a major impact, driving Cuomo to the left and forcing him to publicly embrace progressive aims he’s long shunned. (A day after Nixon called New York’s marijuana laws discriminatory, Cuomo took his first baby steps toward favoring legalization.) Cuomo wouldn’t do this unless he was afraid, and he ought to be: Just three weeks after she joined the race, Siena College found Nixon had shaved 16 points off of Cuomo’s initial polling lead, and a new Quinnipiac poll this week found Cuomo ahead by a just a 50-28 margin—a weak showing for an incumbent against a challenger who's still unknown to half the state. (Apparently not everyone’s a Miranda fan … yet!)
But that’s still a sizable lead, and what's more, Cuomo has all the resources in the world to protect it, including a $30 million war chest that he’s stockpiled thanks to deep-pocketed corporate donors who are eager to keep Cuomo in office. Nixon, by contrast, has pledged to reject all corporate money, and in her first day on the campaign trail, she received more small-dollar donations than Cuomo has collected in seven years.
She’s going to need a lot more, though, and that’s where we come in.
Please give $3 to true progressive Cynthia Nixon and help finally turn New York blue!