Already a number of media mavens are talking about the political honeymoon between Gov. Cuomo and Eric Adams, and the mating is still not consummated, though for all intents and purposes the Democrat can take up residence at Gracie Mansion. (The BOE confirmed Adams’ victory.)
Much of this bromance between Cuomo and Adams is stoked by their recent meeting about what steps need to be taken to reduce gun violence, and they appear to be on the same page—at the moment. Remember back in 2014 when de Blasio was elected mayor (and he was not invited to this press conference), there were aspects of a camaraderie that soon soured.
“He is going to be extraordinary,” the governor said of Adams. And it was rumored that Adams was Cuomo’s choice during the primaries. Even so, Adams was very silent about the matter, artfully dodging such an association. It was similar to his guarded comments when Cuomo and de Blasio were at each other’s throats at the start of the pandemic on the closing of schools. “Cut the crap,” Adams reportedly told them.
What was patently clear with their coming together was the conspicuous absence of the mayor, yet another indicator of the void between the governor and the sitting mayor.
We will watch with more than a passing interest in how the two will get along knowing the historic tension between New York City’s mayor and the state’s governor.
Adams has often invoked Mayor David Dinkins’s tenure in office as a blueprint for his administration, which is admirable, but he should not lose sight of what the governor’s father did to Dinkins in 1993, most egregiously the release of the Crown Heights report and his approval of a ballot referendum on the Staten Island secession in his reelection bid against Rudy Giuliani.
Yes, the marriage between the Democrats is a scheduled matrimony, and it is our hope that acrimony won’t intercept some of the plans that both seem to support now.
“Courage and competence,” were additional words Gov. Cuomo added in his praise of Adams, and he will need a good portion of both in the days ahead.