Mario Cuomo, who served as governor of New York from 1983 to 1994 and passed on running for president in 1988 and 1992 despite intense pressure from the Democratic Party, died today at the age of 82, his son, CNN host Chris Cuomo, confirmed to the network.
Earlier in the day Mario Cuomo had missed the inauguration of his son Andrew Cuomo for his own second term as New York governor; in his speech, the younger Cuomo cited his father’s health issues as the cause of his absence: “My father is not with us today. We had hoped that he was going to be able to come; he is at home and he is not well enough to come. We spent last night with him, changed the tradition a little bit. We weren’t in Albany last night; we stayed at my father’s house to ring in the New Year with him. I went through the speech with him. He said it was good, especially for a second-termer. See, my father is a third-termer. But he sends his regards to all of you. He couldn’t be here physically today, my father. But my father is in this room. He is in the heart and mind of every person who is here. He is here and he is here, and his inspiration and his legacy and his experience is what has brought this state to this point. So let’s give him a round of applause.”
Cuomo died in his Manhattan home, the New York Times reports, citing a family friend.
“Mr. Cuomo burst beyond the state’s boundaries to personify the liberal wing of his national party and become a source of unending fascination and, ultimately, frustration for Democrats, whose leaders twice pressed him to run for president, in 1988 and 1992, to no avail.”
He also pursued a seat on the Supreme Court during Bill Clinton’s first term in office, but ultimately decided against it, the Times reports, and pursued a fourth term as New York governor in 1994 – against the advice of advisers – only to lose to George E. Pataki.
Two images of the governor leave a lasting impact, the Times reported:
“In the end, two images of Mr. Cuomo endure. The first is of him, as governor, commanding the lectern at the 1984 Democratic convention, stilling a sea of delegates with his oratory. The second is of two chartered airplanes on the tarmac at the Albany airport in December 1992, waiting to fly him to New Hampshire to pay the $1,000 filing fee that would put his name on the state’s Democratic primary ballot for president.
“Mr. Cuomo, whose tortuous deliberations over whether to seek the White House had led pundits to call him ‘Hamlet on the Hudson,’ put the decision off until 90 minutes before the 5 p.m. filing deadline. Then he emerged from the Executive Mansion to announce to a news conference at the Capitol that he would not run. The demands of negotiating a stalled state budget, he said, prevented him entering the race.
” ‘It seems to me I cannot turn my attention to New Hampshire while this threat hangs over the head of the New Yorkers that I’ve sworn to put first,’ he said.”
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
He was a rather sympathetic man for Jewish causes albeit his strong democratic views and positions.
He strongly supported the formation of the KJ School district which sole purpose back then was to educate handicapped and developmentally challenged children. Thry formed their own school district and broke away from the Monroe County School District which was and still is virulently antisemitic. It was Mario, I’ll-never-lie-to-you, Cuomo who urged them along and was all too eager to sign it into law.
It was challenged in court and re-challenged until it landed in the United States Supreme Court. Reb Dovid Zweibel then sent a very imposing letter to the justices and after some time it was approved by a 5-4 decision.
Mario was a liberal democrat but a shtikkel on the decent side of issues.