Opinion: As Cuomo adapts, de Blasio’s gambit falters

On one fateful afternoon in June, Mayor Bill de Blasio pitted his credibility with the left against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s and set out to alter the political fortunes of both men.

In a cathartic expression of grievance, de Blasio vowed in an interview to cry foul when the governor’s thirst for political gamesmanship in Albany obstructed his vision for the city.

It was designed to be an inflection point, a gambit that voters would trust de Blasio’s fidelity to the progressive cause and sour on Cuomo’s perceived cynicism.

"We felt we had nothing left to lose," a de Blasio spokeswoman told a reporter.

The summer of discontent that followed has indeed been one of diverging political trajectories, but all in ways the mayor could not have hoped.

The strategy underpinning de Blasio’s outburst was simple: By wielding the threat of outflanking the governor, the mayor would be able to pressure him into doing more to support the city's legislative agenda in Albany. De Blasio believed voters would side with him in a public clash, even telling reporters he was ready for Cuomo to recoil and react, and to not be “surprised if these statements lead to attempts at revenge.” 

Instead, as de Blasio spends more of his mayoralty chasing perceptions, Cuomo appears to have used the mayor's outburst as an opportunity to take stock of his standing with voters, repair his relationships with allies, and chart a new course for his term.

Standing with Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday, Cuomo became the first governor in the country to call for a $15 minimum wage, promptly bringing himself to the fore of a populist wave desperate for answers to the wage slowdown. It was the capstone to a summer where the governor has quietly, but systematically, moved to reposition himself and patch his political vulnerabilities.

Cuomo’s central challenge over the past two years has been to grapple with a flammable mix of cynicism stemming from corruption headlines and unrelenting opposition from teachers unions. Taken together, the atmosphere had served to cast old Cuomo strengths, like a forceful persona and fixation on the machinery of government, in a negative light.

The governor’s recent declaration of sympathy for parents who opted out of Common Core testing, and the conspicuous inclusion of parents on a panel to recommend legislative changes, was a sign of a man recalibrating his second term, determined to once again command the support he enjoyed in his heyday.

To that end, Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers union, was among the first to praise the governor for "listening to teachers and parents." Never mind that Common Core and teacher evaluations, as Kentucky has shown, can be separate issues – New York’s teachers unions had shrewdly co-opted the opt-out movement. Recognizing the potency of a grass-roots frenzy ignited by a teachers union that voters trust, the governor decided to show parents that someone was trying to address their concerns.

His courtship of the left did not end there. Cuomo recently congratulated the new leader of the Public Employees Federation, vowing to work together toward a "fair" contract less than a year after the union endorsed his challenger, Zephyr Teachout. He elevated his frequent rival, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, by giving him a high-profile platform to investigate killings of unarmed civilians by law enforcement, and has avoided stepping on his toes.

Facing criticisms that he was insufficiently supportive of Democrats in past elections, Cuomo paid no heed to the unfavorable electorate in departing state Sen. Tom Libous' conservative district and enthusiastically endorsed a Democrat, Barbara Fiala, before she even announced her candidacy.

Cuomo has even moved to redefine the terms of his success. Asked by a reporter in 2010 what headline he would like to see in four years, Cuomo replied, "People of the state of New York say they have a new respect and belief in government."

He failed to foresee the parade of corruption that followed, a state Capitol beset by endless indictments of top lawmakers. So last month, Cuomo tried a new tack – a renewed focus on big, perceptible projects designed to bring him above the fray and extricate his agenda from the morass of Albany.

"A governor’s legacy is based on public infrastructure projects," Cuomo wrote in a letter to the Times that came days after announcing a $4 billion redesign of LaGuardia Airport alongside Biden.

These are nascent signs of Cuomo moving to cultivate a new image of a responsive, collaborative governor who is rolling up his sleeves to boost paychecks, build airports and blunt testing anxieties. If he continues on this path, he will find himself in a formidable position come re-election in 2018.

De Blasio, on the other hand, has spent this summer struggling to fight off a narrative that his city is backsliding due to managerial mishaps. Seemingly small missteps are exacerbated because he has been unyielding in his refusal to admit mistakes, invoking the purity of his progressive values as a substitute.

Alas, despite his roster of tangible, impressive accomplishments – spanning universal pre-K to the municipal ID program and the expansion of paid sick leave – de Blasio’s intense focus on ideology has consumed his messaging bandwidth, leaving voters yearning for vivid, performative displays of competence.

It doesn’t matter that de Blasio faces no credible challenge in a Democratic primary. A reinvigorated Cuomo and faltering de Blasio spells doom for the strategy the mayor wagered on in June, when he unleashed his criticism of the governor.

In the summer that followed his interview, de Blasio was not counting on Cuomo to readjust so swiftly to the political winds. He was not counting on the possibility that his agenda in his own city might unravel, to say nothing of his legislative priorities in Albany.

But such is the outcome of fateful afternoons in June.

Khan Shoieb is a former communications director for the New York Working Families Party.