Will Andrew Cuomo Stage a Coup and Become the Democratic Nominee?

Politics: Fact or Fable?

For the Democrats’ upper crust it’s all about who can beat Trump.

As far as the media is concerned, Joe Biden is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, but is he? Ask Bernie Sanders, who very recently was the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The top Democrats have two objectives in mind. First is beating Donald Trump and retaking the executive branch of government and all the patronage and spoils that entails. Second is preventing Bernie, or any progressive, from becoming the nominee. The Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC) seems to have accomplished objective number two. 

The Stop Bernie campaign devised a plan, in my opinion, to convince a large number of Democrats to seek the nomination for president. If these politicians had been planning to run all along, there is no evidence. Many of them ran for media exposure and to gain points with the power brokers in the Party. The DLC’s goal for these also-rans was for them to gather enough delegate votes to block Bernie from winning on the first ballot. 

After the 2016 Democratic primary campaign, progressives tried to get rid of unelected “superdelegates” who were appointed by the DLC and constituted about 15 percent of the delegate vote. They were nearly all anti-Bernie. A compromise was agreed to, in which the superdelegates could not vote on the first ballot, but could vote on subsequent ballots. 

The old guard, aka DLC, planned their strategy to force the very popular Bernie Sanders into a second or third ballot where they would be able to unite their various candidates and the superdelegates against Bernie. In 2020, there are approximately 3979 regular delegates and 771 superdelegates, for a total of 4750 voting delegates on the second ballot.

This ploy was not a sure thing because no one could say how many delegates Bernie would end up accruing. As it turned out, another plan, orchestrated by Barack Obama, derailed Bernie. Just before Super Tuesday, Obama convinced most of the other candidates to dropout in favor of Joe Biden. The dates of their suspension of their campaigns was an amazing coincidence: Pete Buttigieg, March 1; Amy Klobuchar, March 2; Michael Bloomberg, March 4; Elizabeth Warren, March 5. Super Tuesday was held on March 3. Bernie had been expected to win most of the states.

Nearly all of the supporters of the two moderate-conservative candidates, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, moved over to moderate-conservative Joe Biden, rather than to Progressive leftist Bernie Sanders. In addition, the election eve endorsement of Biden by South Carolina’s leading Black Member of Congress, Jim Clyburn swung enough Black voters to give Biden the state. When conservative Bloomberg and moderate Warren joined the week of resignations, Bernie’s fate was sealed. Warren added insult to injury by endorsing Biden, instead of her Vermont neighbor and ideological neighbor, Bernie Sanders. Had she urged her delegates and voters to support Bernie, the contest would probably be about even now. Instead, Biden has 1467 delegates, and Sanders has 973.

Enter Andrew Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo is in his third term as the Governor of New York. One day, he might have looked out the window of his office in the Albany capitol and thought to himself: “I’m so tired of this little town. I should be the President of the United States.” It runs in the family. His father, Mario, also a three-term governor of New York, and likely a much nicer man, and a more progressive political leader, could have been president in 1988 or 1992. But he didn’t want it enough apparently, even though he was the favorite to win the nomination before the primary voting even began. Too bad for Mario, and too bad for the rest of us. We got stuck with George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. As it turns out, too bad for Andrew. He would have had an easier time becoming president if his father had been as popular a president as he had been as a governor. 

Instead, Andrew would have to become president by connivance. But it didn’t seem that it would be that difficult. There was this old guy that the current president called “sleepy Joe.” Old Joe had a women problem. He couldn’t keep his hands off them. He had a son who did some unseemly things, like gathering money and positions in the Ukraine and China on the strength of his father’s political power. “We Cuomos would never be so blatant,” Andrew smiled. “Of course, old Joe is a Clinton man. That might cause some problems. This will have to be finessed. Worst case,” he thought, “Hillary tells Biden to pick her for VP. That would be too much firepower even for me. But what are the odds of that happening?

“Who else do I have to worry about,” mused Andrew. “He didn’t have to deal with Bernie Sanders, who had really pissed off Big Pharma and other Democratic Fat Cats, and thereby, the DNC. Bernie was dead meat.”

Andrew Cuomo was 62 years old. If he didn’t catch the brass ring this year and he missed it again in four years, he would be 68 before he had another chance to be president. His best chance was this year.

The problem was that few people outside New York knew who he was. Then, a virus came swooping out of China, or Europe, or some goddamn place. This was Andrew’s chance and he knew it.

The Road to the White House

The New York Capitol building: movin’ on up to the White House?

Step One: Meanwhile, down in DC, Trump was having a hard time with this science thing. “What does that have to do with making money? Who cares? Can’t be worse that a case of the flu,” thought the building contractor, turned entertainer, turned leader of the free world. Trump soon found out that the virus was worse, far worse. Now he was on display every day without his cheering supporters backing him up.

Andrew only needed to watch one session of the Trump Follies to see how he was going to become the most popular man in America. First he had to be in command of the facts (not hard since they were on the teleprompter), be nice to the press, be a little folksy (not too much, this is New York), talk about the tragic illnesses and deaths, and the heroic doctors, nurses and essential workers, and finally, disparage himself once a day. People had to see how humble he was. 

Step Two: “How do I deal with that pesky presidential primary on April 28, that someone, not me, will win. I know. I’ll just cancel it saying the election has already been decided. If there’s no election, the New York delegates will go to the convention uncommitted. But my fingerprints can’t be on it. I’ll have the Board of Elections cancel it. I appoint half of them, so they’ll go along.” But Andrew didn’t count on Andrew Yang, who brought suit in the federal courtroom of Judge Analisa Torres, who insisted on some semblance of democracy, and order that the primary election take place on June 23, with all the Democratic candidates on the ballot. Cuomo: Memo to the staff. Find out who the hell is Andrew Yang.

The Convention

The Democratic Convention was now scheduled for the late date of August 17 in Milwaukee. But who would even be there? It was within the realm of possibility that Bernie could make a comeback, but the DNC surely had more hoops waiting for him to jump through. Would Joe Biden still be on his feet in August? Could he evade all the women in his past? Would his son behave? Could he remember what to say?

Andrew Cuomo thought he could pull it off. The number of Coronavirus infections and deaths would probably be at its lowest point around the end of August. That would make him look like a winner. On the other hand, the economy would be in the pits and it would all be blamed on Donald Trump. “Now we’ll see who can beat Trump,” thought Cuomo. Certainly not Joe Biden. Democrats across the country would learn to love Andrew Cuomo. It couldn’t have worked out better if he had planned it.

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