It Will Take a Cuomo to Carry on Kennedy Legacy

I will never forget that day. It was May 1968, in Pomona, California. I was in my last semester at Emerson Junior High (named after the great essayist and anti-slavery activist, Ralph Waldo Emerson). At that time, the small industrial city was deeply divided along the de facto racial, economic and geographic border of Interstate 10, and there was a cloud of tension in the air.

On that beautiful day, Senator Bobby Kennedy made a campaign stop at the Pomona Valley Mall, as a hovering smog moved over to the next county as if in deference to the bright politico. My friends and I cut school to get a glimpse. The mall's concourse was as jammed as the final game of the World Cup. Along the way, this young, charismatic Senator reached out of the back of a flat bed truck and shook my hand, which I didn't wash for days (I was later suspended for playing hooky -- but I'm sure Emerson would have approved).

The massive throng that day was evenly divided: Half black, half white. But there was no tension. We were all on good behavior, for we had come to share the presence of this great individual who hated racism.

African-Americans adored Senator Kennedy, perhaps as much as the immortal abolitionist, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Sumner, who shepherded the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments had barely survived an 1856 cane-beating from Rep. Preston Brooks after taking the Senate floor to condemn President Pierce and the southern slave establishment for the bloodbath underway in the Kansas territory.

Today, as racism persists as America's most lethal domestic malady, this nation desperately needs more champions of the poor and disenfranchised such as Senators Sumner and Kennedy.

I do not know if Caroline Kennedy is that person. An Upper East Side life does not guarantee cognizance of the racial and social problems woven into the national fabric. But Caroline Kennedy is a prominent figure whose popularity would be a fool's errand to criticize, despite the lack of a paper trail to assess her political abilities and potential. Perhaps one might judge by the company she keeps, particularly among her newly-formed campaign circle -- one that is very white and very cosmopolitan.

Let's begin with her friend and neighbor, Mayor Mike Bloomberg. It is baffling that she breaks bread with a man whose record on race is actually worse than that of Rudy Giuliani. Consider the numbers: Last year alone, there were over 500,000 police stops and frisks -- mostly targeting people of color. In Bloomberg's New York, 1,500 blacks and Latinos are similarly robbed of their dignity and civil rights every single day. There has also been a tenfold increase in Gotham marijuana arrests of -- you guessed it, people almost exclusively of color. Bloomberg's personal pick as police commissioner, Raymond Kelly was the architect of the U.S. Customs' "flying while black" policy, in which 95% of the women strip-searched at American airports were black and Latino.

One can only wonder whether Caroline, used her access to Mayor Bloomberg's ear to whisper her objections to Hizzoner's racist policies.

Or his electoral megalomania. Billionaire Bloomberg has subverted the express will of City voters with a cynical, well-funded end run around twice-voted term limits, suborning City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and other feckless council members along the way.

Or his antipathy to the First Amendment. It was Mayor Bloomberg who welcomed the Republican National Convention in 2004, and denied anti-war demonstrators their right to protest, utilizing indiscriminate police sweeps for massive arrests, costing the city a bundle in civil law suits.

Why is Caroline so close to this spoiled little man? And why would Kennedy retain the services of Bloomberg's odious campaign consultant team?

The Knickerbocker firm is run by Josh Isay. I know the guy. He has the personality of a funeral director, the discretion of a Blackwater mercenary, and the ethics of an itinerant hangman. I had the occasion to work with him three years ago on a New York campaign where I watched him use his BlackBerry and pocket calculator to run up the campaign tab, like with a million excess palm cards he convinced the candidate to order from... himself! Bloomberg loaned Isay out to Connecticut war hawk Joseph Lieberman. Isay also managed NY Senator Charles Schumer's 1998 run against Alfonse D'Amato. While in the House, Schumer was point man for the 1996 crime bill that put more innocent people on death row because of a provision limiting appeals. Schumer went on to support the annexation of Iraq and the Patriot Act. Are you really sure this man is who you want, Caroline?

So, who is truly the best person to follow in the footsteps of Robert F. Kennedy, and bridge the racial gap that plagues this state and the rest of the nation? None other than our current Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo.

I met Andrew Cuomo in 2002, along with members of my group, Mothers of the New York Disappeared -- which represents those unjustly imprisoned under New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws, which is our own version of Jim Crow and convict leasing. Cuomo immediately called not for "reform," but for the repeal of these racist laws. He was the first major politician in 30 years to call for this action, which was near-revolutionary in New York politics. He lost his bid for Governor but, to our pleasant surprise, did not abandon the Rockefeller cause.

For the next two years, Cuomo held press conferences, went on television and spoke at major rallies, side by side with ex-prisoners and their families calling for an end to this experiment in state terror against people of color. The laws were eventually changed to a small extent -- but neither to his nor our satisfaction.

Not only did Cuomo continue to speak out, he also volunteered legal advice and other assistance to the limited number of prisoners eligible to have their draconian sentences reduced. One such is Severina Jacquez, who was serving 17 years-to-life for a questionable drug possession offense that had occurred 12 years earlier. This miscarriage of justice left Severina's 10 year-old daughter, Jennifer, to fend for herself on the streets of New York. But with Andrew's help, that sentence was eventually reduced to seven years, and Miss Jacquez will finally be reunited with her daughter this Christmas.

Cuomo also led the charge to keep the death penalty from rearing its ugly head back into our criminal code after it was struck down by the Court of Appeals in 2004 -- despite the support for this ultimate form of racism by a majority of New Yorkers, who have since caught up with Andrew's vision on the issue. If he were to go to Washington today, Cuomo would be our first Senator in decades to oppose the death penalty.

Andrew is also the founder of Help USA -- which provides housing and employment for the poor and the homeless. It is currently run by his sister Maria Cuomo, New York's own Mother Teresa. Help USA has also been a godsend to the Mothers of the New York Disappeared, particularly for the family of Vernonica Flournoy. Miss Flournoy was convicted of a minor drug offense in 1997 and sentenced to 8 years to life in prison, leaving her two preschool daughters in the care of her mother Eileen. Their house burned down one afternoon and they were left homeless. Help USA came to their rescue. Veronica died a few years later but not until she set up a future for her kids and 83 year old mother. There are similar stories.

In his short tenure as Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo has done more to protect the interests of the average New Yorker than others have done in two full terms. Among his accomplishments: A groundbreaking investigation of the security rating agency charged with protecting small investors; ending the practice of college and university kickbacks from loan companies to whom they steered their underfunded students; leading the opposition to the massive bonus payouts to Wall Street CEOs heading firms seeking emergency federal bailout funds; and pulling the covers back on Eliot Spitzer's central role in the nefarious "Troopergate" scandal which foreshadowed the disgraced former Governor's forced resignation.

Admittedly, I have had major differences with Mr. Cuomo over the years. But those differences centered on tactics and strategy; I am scorched-earth radical, while Andrew is an even-tempered pragmatic progressive. The difference, I suppose, is that he gets things done.

If Caroline Kennedy wants to serve her nation, perhaps she should follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, and seek his old job as Ambassador to the
Court of St James. I am sure President-elect Obama would have no problem with that. After all, at a critical point in the campaign, she did help him gain momentum against the woman whose seat she now so envies.

I hope Governor David Paterson does the right thing and appoints someone qualified for the job, someone who represents the average New Yorker.

Paterson doesn't owe Kennedy or Obama anything politically. They had nothing to do with his becoming governor. The only entity he is beholden to is that which elected him as the state's Lieutenant Governor in 2006: We The People.

Mayor Bloomberg, as the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett so cogently points out, is really the "Dr. Frankenstein" of the Caroline Kennedy's contrived Senate juggernaut. He treats the Governor as if he were his personal valet, symbolically stopping and frisking him and confiscating the Gov's constitutional right to make his own choice to fill the senate void.

Governor Paterson should resist the mayor's arrogant meddling and act like a statesman by appointing a statesman to fill Senator Clinton's soon-to-be evacuated seat. That statesman is Andrew Cuomo. He is the best suited, and has the demonstrated record to carry on the legacy of Robert F. Kennedy.

Comments

[andersonville]

Caroline Kennedy is a plant by Mike Bloomberg. Read award winning investigative reporter wayne's barrett's recent expose in the village voice. He is pulling all of the shady strings to try to get reelected, i.e, to buy another election. He is a most insincere political snake of the highest order. The whole affair is deeply complicated otherwise and would take 2000 words to lay it all out. Caroline had no biz making a public play for the seat and put Paterson in a no-win situation. I blame the mayor whose credo is "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for mike bloomber."

[fayemac]

Im glad to see that there are people out there that actuly have hands on experience with Cuomo. We outside NY dont know what experience any of them have but that Kennendy has none. Finally we get what we need.

[Stephen C. Rose - Huffpost Blogger]

I think Caroline will win this contest. And I really wonder if all the noise about her is not being generated by her opponents and a venal MSM, http://stephencrose.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/is-andrew-cuomo-behind-caroline-trashing/

[BARRISTER]

Ever heard of "Senator, The Right Reverend Al Sharpton, Esq. " ?

[ReportThis]

Kudos, Randy -- no one else on the planet could have used "Andrew Cuomo" and "even tempered pragmatic progressive" in the same sentence.

[RobinSeattle]

Anyone remember the mortgage meltdown that has sunk our economy?

Turns out that Cuomo had a hand in it.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-05/news/how-andrew-cuomo-gave-birth-to-the-crisis-at-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac/

And you also have this tidbit, where Cuomo's HUD fell for a speculator swindle in Harlem:
http://www.observer.com/node/43844

Kinda bad symbolism for the times, don't you think?

Appointing him to the Senate takes away the Democratic Party claim to the high ground on that issue in the same way that Sarah Palin nomination whipped the Obama as too inexperienced to be President meme out from under the McCain campaign.

[ErikW65]

The Democratic Party has a "claim to the high ground on that issue"? Really?

[RobinSeattle]

Yep. Because the Republicans who were running Congress and the White House didn't just allow this to unfold past the time when even Alan Greenspan was becoming alarmed at how the real estate bubble was manifesting itself, but they were positively giddy about the soaring real estate prices even though it was evident that the bubble would have to burst with extensive economic consequences.

John McCain, after one meeting with the Commerce Committee that he chaired where he was interviewing folks from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admitted that he didn't comprehend the testimony that he had just heard. Plus lobbyists for those two entities had larded the GOP with lots of money to maintain the status quo.

[ErikW65]

Andrew Cuomo sounds like a better choice for Gov. Paterson to appoint to the Senate. His popularity statewide is already electorally proven.

[customgreen]

Mr. Cumo lost all respectability when hhe referred to Obama as someone who "Shucks and Jives" Nope he gets nothing from this former New York State resident. He isn't even a slight shodow of his father.

[ErikW65]

Obama's not the decider...

[jingles32]

Would that be the same Andrew Cuomo who, during the primaries, said on air that Ob a ma would "shuck and jive" his way to the WH?

I'll go with the cousin of the former wife of Mr. Class.

[OkieMon]

didn't this guy divorce a real kennedy?

[jhNY]

War of the Spuds! Which offspring of which famous political family do we want appointed to an office that neither can credibly claim to be able to win in an election? And just to really get the juices of irony going, appointed by a man who few would claim could have ever become governor except by catastrophe (see Spitzer, E. for details)! The dizzying array of choices is typical of a brain-dead political process by which office-holders look all over New York for a qualified appointee and miraculously discover the right person for the job is already sitting across from them at brunch!

Cuomo and Kennedy compare to their forbears, to once more drag out the overused Twain line, as "lightning bug" compares to "lightning." But as name recognition for each is higher than for any ordinary person, perhaps the real merit behind either of these choices is that campaign money in future could be devoted to some other aspect of candidacy, like actual qualifications or issues important to the electorate. As it is now, the most persuasive reason either of these persons ought to be appointed is : "You liked the father, you'll love the child!" And that's how we got GW Bush.

[Egalitare]

Uhhh...has Cuomo said he WANTS the appointment?

[Thezebra]

Yes believe so

[ema]

Very good post, Randy. If the choice comes down to Cuomo or Kennedy -- because they have the names to raise the money -- I favor Cuomo. His office came to my rescue in a really BIG way once. I will never forget the way they fought my health insurance company for me with expediency and diligence.

Cuomo has an impressive public record that is readily available for scrutiny.

All we know about Kennedy is speculative. She might be fantastic (despite her links to Bloomberg -- yeah, I loathe the guy too.) But there is a very slim record of service. In addition we don't know how she fair on the campaign trail.

Plus Cuomo has a relationship to Western and Upstate Nyers that Kennedy does not.

If Caroline wants to be senator so badly, let her run against him in 2010. Or better yet, let her run against Chuck Schumer when the time comes. Or even better, run against Bloomberg. Now that would make my day.

[Teyshar]

I'll take Mario...Cuomo that is.

[vjoseph]

Isn't that still a legacy appointment?

[Thezebra]

I completely agree with Credico and kudos to him for pointing out Cuomo's very real achievements, achievements that his past often overshadows. It is also obvious that Andrew has evolved; he eschews the limelight and does his job with diligence. Caroline Kennedy, on the other hand, is like an American Idol contestant.

Governor, appoint Andrew. He has the liberal progressive bona fides.