ALBANY — Andrew Cuomo had few political friends during his disastrous first campaign for governor. The state’s entire Democratic establishment was backing state Controller H. Carl McCall. Party leaders wanted Cuomo to sit it out and wait his turn.
But Bill de Blasio, then a city councilman from Brooklyn, bucked the trend. De Blasio circulated Cuomo’s nominating petitions and appeared at rallies with him. He was one of the city’s few elected officials to endorse Cuomo’s candidacy.
After all, the year before, Cuomo had backed de Blasio in a crowded primary for the Council.
“They were two guys who had each other’s back,” a Cuomo source said.
Now de Blasio is about to become the city’s 109th mayor, with Cuomo entrenched in Albany as governor.
It’s been a long time in New York since a mayor and a governor have had the kind of personal and professional ties that de Blasio and Cuomo enjoy.
“You couldn’t have a better relationship than I have with this mayor,” Cuomo told a public radio interviewer last week.
But now that relationship is about to tested by the often-clashing interests of City Hall and Albany.
“That’s an institutional thing, nothing to do with personalities,” said David Catalfamo, a top aide to former Gov. George Pataki. “The city is a municipal subdivision of the state yet it’s the most important city on the planet.”
During the mayoral race, New Yorkers got a taste of the potential problems ahead when Cuomo threw cold water on de Blasio’s plan to raise income taxes on the rich to finance universal pre-kindergarten.
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Cuomo made clear he’s not interested in hiking taxes while he’s seeking reelection, a stance that led to weeks of tough questions for de Blasio about the viability of his plan.
Those close to both men believe the friendship between de Blasio and Cuomo is too strong to be torn apart.
“They’ll differ and have different discussions and arguments and bitch and complain about each other but at end of the day they’ll come together and do something,” said Todd Howe, who worked with both as Cuomo’s deputy chief of staff at HUD.
“If Bill rolled over, the governor’s respect will go right out the window for him.”
The relationship between Cuomo and de Blasio began in earnest when Cuomo was the HUD secretary, and he hired de Blasio in 1997 to oversee the New Jersey and New York region, a key position given Cuomo’s political ambitions in his home state.
“Bill was very hard-working and detailed oriented. If you know anything about Andrew Cuomo, he really values that in staff,” said Karen Hinton, a HUD staffer under Cuomo whose husband is now a top aide to the governor.
De Blasio had been a City Hall aide under then Mayor David Dinkins, he managed Rep. Charles Rangel’s 1994 reelection campaign, and he headed Bill Clinton’s New York reelection campaign 1996.
Rangel and other minority leaders are said to have recommended de Blasio to Cuomo.
The two hit it off quickly, with Cuomo impressed by de Blasio’s political skills.
“Washington is a complicated beast and you had two smart political minds coming together,” a longtime Cuomo ally said.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
It’s been a long time in New York since a mayor and a governor have had the kind of personal and professional ties that de Blasio and Cuomo enjoy.
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Howe remembers de Blasio setting up a seven-day trip with Cuomo along the Erie Canal to hand out development money.
“He was in sync like a laser with Bill as to what needed to be done along the canal, what the federal government could do,” Howe said. “It was like the two of them were in tandem. All cylinders were firing on that trip.”
Hinton said de Blasio was not shy about giving his opinions.
“He was never nervous about speaking up or saying something different than what the secretary may have thought,” Hinton said. “The relationship was so solid, he didn’t really worry about it.”
De Blasio left HUD in 1999 and ran Hillary Clinton’s successful 2000 Senate campaign New York, but he and Cuomo remained in frequent contact.
In 2002, when Cuomo first ran for governor, de Blasio backed him, defying the Brooklyn Democratic boss at the time, Clarence Norman.
“It was a tougher ask for Bill at that time because his county leader was all in for McCall,” one source said.
Cuomo bowed out of the campaign just days before the primary, and then he went through a painfully public divorce. De Blasio was there for him during each crisis, sources close to both men said.
“They spoke all those times in the wilderness,” said one Cuomo insider. “He always sought out Bill’s advice.”
When Cuomo reentered public life to run for attorney general in 2006, de Blasio was extremely helpful at the state Democratic convention, helping to get the Brooklyn Democratic Party behind Cuomo’s candidacy.
Cuomo returned the favor when de Blasio ran for public advocate four years ago. “We came out for him in the runoff,” the Cuomo source said.
De Blasio in 2010 played the go-between with Cuomo and the Working Families Party as Cuomo decided whether to accept the party’s endorsement, which he ultimately did.
De Blasio is also one of those Cuomo has spoken to frequently after becoming governor, using him as a sounding board on political and policy issues, Howe said.
“Bill will tell you what’s really going on,” the Cuomo source said. “He’ll say, ‘this guy’s not really mad at you, he just wants something else. ‘He’s got a good gut.’”
De Blasio has sought similar counsel from Cuomo. Some of Cuomo’s team worked with de Blasio’s mayoral campaign behind the scenes.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) said men will find a way to make their new relationship work.
“They may not agree on every issue, but there will be a fair hearing of the issues,” Silver said. “The personalities will not be what gets in the way of getting things done.”
Howe doesn’t expect the often frosty relationship Cuomo had with outgoing Mayor Bloomberg.
“Andrew had no relationship with Bloomberg,” Howe said. “Bill’s a guy much like Andrew, a street guy. Bloomberg’s not a street guy.”
He added, “It’s going to be a different dynamic, and I think it’s going to be a good dynamic.”
klovett@nydailynews.com
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=17062
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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