And so, suddenly, just like that, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s political career — and likely his future public presence entirely — has evaporated as he pulled the plug on himself, on Tuesday. Now 63, Cuomo has been a nearly constant presence in the nation’s political life since he was 24 years old, when he managed his father’s successful campaign for the governorship in New York. His father went on to serve three terms as governor, and the son had been elected three times as well, and he had been hoping to run for a fourth — exceeding his father’s long run as governor — in 2022, but this dream now lies in ashes.

Back when the Covid pandemic was first burning through the US and as the Trump administration’s carnival sideshow of prevaricating casuistry had been designed to downplay the disease, or even the need for major emergency public health responses, Cuomo’s internationally televised, almost daily media conferences became must-see events for millions.

In those broadcasts, Cuomo delivered the facts and reams of data, all seasoned with well-placed, righteous anger. As he delivered his message, there were always crisp charts and comprehendible diagrams, nuggets of expert testimony, and a rhetorical stance pouring scorn (along with pleas for urgent federal help) on any fatuousness that the then-president had offered about the pandemic, and his administration’s feckless responses. It was riveting television, an antidote to the nonsense spewing from the president’s mouth, especially if the viewer was not a pandemic policy nerd or an epidemiologist. This was real life and death stuff.

But there was a serpent in Cuomo’s garden — or, rather, there were several. First it began to come out that the statistics on the spread of the pandemic in nursing homes in New York state (mostly affecting the elderly) were not entirely accurate. Perhaps, cooked by gubernatorial aides eager to make the governor look better than the facts would support, would be a more accurate way to describe this sleight of hand. Then, after he had signed a massive book deal — for $5-million divided over three years — and the publishers rushed it into print, it was being reported Cuomo had received some significant assistance from staff aides, an abuse of state law.

Well okay, everybody can make a mistake or two. Nobody’s perfect. Who in an official position hasn’t at some time or other fudged some numbers just a bit, or asked an underling to do some research for themselves and then taken (in his case, some very well-remunerated) credit for the resulting work?

But then, along came the third serpent. A growing list of women, 11 at this point, who had been on his staff or in other official jobs that had brought them into contact with the governor, began stepping out from the shadows to charge the governor had engaged in a pattern of sexual intimidation that included obvious suggestive comments, as well as a range of unwanted touching and close physical contact.

We should make it clear that, at least at this point, no one has alleged any actual sexual intimacy had been imposed upon these women by the governor. Nevertheless, an investigation into his behaviour as portrayed by the 11 women, and carried out by the state’s Attorney-General, Letitia James, characterises Cuomo’s behaviour as having created a “toxic work environment” for the women in his official circle. There are the possibilities of criminal charges in some cases.

It seems Cuomo had, at first, believed he could brazen it all out, given his actual political heroism in the early days of the pandemic, or from the largely positive reputation his governorship had achieved from efforts at pushing a sometimes-recalcitrant state legislature to legalise same-sex marriage and to fund major infrastructure projects.

Perhaps, too, he even daydreamed that the lingering, broad halo of the Cuomo name would be just enough to carry him to safety. Or maybe even he had banked on the popularity of his CNN talk show host brother, Chris Cuomo, a star on CNN, to help see it all through to the finish line. Perhaps he just didn’t take these real and growing dangers to his political circumstances seriously enough to believe such supposedly minor things like these could bring him down. At this moment, we cue up the ancient Greek term, “hubris,” the word describing a heroic protagonist’s mental state before he is brought low.

In the end, there was simply no protective political shield for him from anywhere. This came about partly from the nature of the charges themselves, as well as his reputation for playing hardball politics in his career, with the consequent bruises and scars left around afterwards.  As a result, the state’s entire Democratic contingent in the US Congress told him to go; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told him to begone; the New York State Assembly offered him nary a shred of support and threatened an impeachment process; the leading papers in the country editorialised it was past time for him to quit; President Joe Biden refused to support him; and his lieutenant-governor, Katy Huchel, didn’t either. (She, of course, stands to gain enormously from this, since in two weeks’ time she will become New York’s first female governor.)

 In a resignation speech carried on television (just as his pandemic conferences had been), Cuomo went to great pains to position his withdrawal from office as the result of a clash between old-style office interactions and a new, more “woke” culture he had failed to come to grips with properly. Even if the commentariat fails to buy that line, Cuomo is hoping the broader public will reluctantly accept that. He made much of his contributions to New York’s welfare over the years, as well as the fact he would never have intentionally done anything to humiliate or embarrass his three grown daughters. 

Here was a key to his remarks. He made much of his Italian heritage, pointing to the fact a big part of Italian heritage is — and has always been — a hugging, embracing, touching, kissing culture, and so he just did what was natural to him in that context, and meant no harm. And, as the governor’s own attorney had said in remarks, that Attorney-General’s report about the governor’s behaviour had been deeply biased against her client, and his heritage and traditions.

In truth, Cuomo is also trying — without saying it explicitly — to point to an unfair distinction in the way he has now been treated in comparison to how the admitted (even bragged about) really disgusting, bad boy behaviour and talk by the ex-president had just been shrugged off by big chunks of the electorate, along with a spineless, obsequious, even oleaginous Republican political class.

Or as Russell Berman noted in The Atlantic after Cuomo’s decision was made, “Democrats hold their leaders to higher standards than Republicans do. When they abandoned the New York governor, he had no choice but to quit.” Moreover, Cuomo used his edging-towards-lachrymose farewell media announcement to explain he had become a special kind of victim on the shifting sands of the change in cultural mores, an unfair victim of today’s “#MeToo” movement, although he did not quite come right out and say it that way.

The Guardian noted, following Cuomo’s announcement, “The governor had presented himself as a champion of the revived #MeToo movement sparked by accusations against the now-convicted film mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2017. But on Tuesday, Cuomo said that in his mind he had ‘never crossed the line with anyone’ then added: ‘I did not realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.’ He also said there was ‘no factual basis’ for the most serious allegation against him. This is that he groped his former aide Brittany Commisso’s breast, which prompted a criminal complaint that is being investigated by the sheriff’s office in Albany county, where the state capital and Cuomo’s executive offices and mansion are located. But he concluded: ‘The best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing. And therefore, that’s what I’ll do.’ ”

Soon enough, amateur psychologists may be having a field day with this unhappy outcome to Cuomo’s political career. The cut and thrust, the planning and scheming of politics had been pretty much all he had lived for, and now it is all gone. His marriage to one of the scions of the Kennedy family had dissolved some years earlier, as had a newer, long-term partnership with a lifestyle television show host. Now he will have to move out of the governor’s mansion in Albany, the state capital, and on to an unknown residence and any future career or public presence.

While many will find it easy to apportion to Cuomo the full share of all blame for bringing this down upon himself, some may want to offer the brief slightly differently. The informal rules of behaviour in offices and professional relationships have evolved over the years. What might have been shrugged off as a “cost of doing business” in what was formerly, largely, a man’s world for many working women, is most certainly not acceptable now — even though it still happens, obviously.

There is, of course, the important question of differential power relationships between younger staff aides and a powerful governor that undoubtedly taint any such interactions. But there is also the possibility that, in his mind, Cuomo felt sufficiently entitled that if some of those women who are now accusing him had given any subtle or inconclusive clues of interest, his attentions only increased.

As The Economist summed it up, “Like a man caught on the wrong side of sliding doors on the subway, in response to the sexual-harassment claims Mr Cuomo insisted that he never ‘crossed the line with anyone’ and that he did not ‘realise the extent to which the line had been redrawn.’ He blamed generational and cultural differences. Last week’s report added heft to his accusers’ claims. His fellow Democrats, including several allies, said it was time for him to go. His team’s attempts to undermine the credibility of his accusers did not sit well with supporters.”

Several decades of public discourse in New York City about feminism and associated ideas about appropriate sexualised behaviour should have alerted the governor to the increasingly thin ice he was starting to skate out on to via his risky business — with the sounds of loud, ringing gongs and wailing whistles as background music.

Still, if he hadn’t bruised so many politically, and if he hadn’t been so hard-driven to achieve one more term of office as governor than his father had, perhaps there might have been a bit more sympathy for him. Now he will have to move along to attempt another book, but now an apologia meant to explain how everything happened, how it all fell apart, and what he has learnt from the experience. DM