No Mo’ Cuomo!  by Tom Reynolds

Let’s all take a moment and enjoy the moment.  No matter what the future holds, it will not include Mario’s kid.  Aaahhh, that feels good.

Let’s turn to the “Governor to be” Kathleen Hochul.  What do we know about her?

She was born in Buffalo area and lived there most of her life.  An upstater!  What a change in Albany!  Will Upstate’s culture impact her policies? Or, after a lifetime in politics, has she completely sold out to the “Dark Side”?

Other than a period after graduating from law school when she worked for a D.C. law firm, her entire career has been spent in Democrat politics.  She worked as a legal counsel and legislative assistant to U.S. Representative John LaFalce and U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan and for the New York State Assembly.  She was elected to the Hamburg Town Board in November 1994 and served until 2007. In 2003 she was appointed Deputy Erie County Clerk and served from 2007 through 2011 as the Erie County Clerk.  She was elected to Congress in a 2011 special election, primarily because a Tea Party candidate split the Republican vote.  (The election was necessary because her predecessor resigned over a sex scandal.  History does repeat itself!)    She lost her attempt at reelection in 2012. 

In Congress, Hochul was one of 17 Democrats to join Republicans in supporting a resolution finding Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for the “Fast and Furious” gunwalking scandal.  The National Rifle Association supported the contempt resolution and announced it would be scoring lawmakers. This got her an endorsement by the NRA.  (Don’t get too excited about that, there is more to come.)

Cuomo named her as his Lieutenant Governor running mate in 2014.  In response, Ammoland called for the NRA to repudiate its prior support of Hochul.  It said that, because of the Safe Act, “Cuomo is scared! That’s why he picked Kathy Hochul as his running mate . . . he knows the anti-gun SAFE act could kill his campaign so he tried to deceive you by picking a lieutenant governor with an NRA endorsement and A rating from a congressional campaign in 2012.”

“Of course, Cuomo would never pick someone who actually would stand up for your rights.”

“Asked if she supported the SAFE Act, Hochul said: ‘Yes, I do.’”

It should be noted that there was very low voter turnout in 2014’s election:  less that 4 million voted and Cuomo won with 2.2 million votes.  Did Hochul’s presence on the ticket help keep Cuomo in office?  There are probably 5 million gun owners in NY State so many of them did not bother to vote.

In 2018, the NY Daily News reported that Hochul said that the NY State Senate was too afraid of the NRA to pass a “Red Flag” law.

Basically, she is a lifetime politician, which should worry us…a lot.  As Lieutenant Governor, she was mostly a non-factor but she did toe the Cuomo line, which should also worry us.  (Principles generally mean little to lifetime politicians in their pursuit of political power.) 

And just for fun, what about her husband, William Hochul?  He worked for the Department of Justice for nearly 30 years. According to his LinkedIn account, he joined the department in 1987 and he started as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1991. In 2009, former President Obama nominated Hochul as the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York. Hochul remained in that role for more than six years before deciding to retire from the DOJ.  In 2016, Hochul became Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary to Delaware North Companies, Incorporated, a Hospitality and Gambling company.

So, William Hochul spent his career in government, working for the DOJ, (which we have seen has proven to be more interested in politics than justice when it came to political issues).  And he was an Obama appointment!  It’s likely his current job in the gaming industry has more to do with influencing politics than managing a company.  There will likely be no sobering influence on her from her husband.

Presumably, Kathy Hochul will want to run for Governor in 2022 and will have to start preparing, almost immediately.  The Democrat Party is loaded with people who will be stepping up for the nomination for governor:  Letitia James, NY’s Attorney General, (She produced the report which brought Cuomo down.  Any conflict of political interest there?); Thomas DiNapoli, NY’s Comptroller; NY City’s Mayor Bill DiBlasio, (Seriously?  DiBlasio?  He could unite NY since no one wants him to be governor).  And let‘s not forget those perennial power seekers: Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Octasio-Cortez (the former has time on her hands but the latter may be too busy ordering Nancy Pelosi around.)

Hochul has a year to make a name for herself before the Democrat Primary in 2022.  But the NY Legislature has adjourned for 2021 and her duty would only include signing – or vetoing – any leftover bills that Cuomo missed.  Her only real shot at legislation will be next January to June when the legislature meets again.  Will she sell out to the extreme left?  She’s called a moderate but Joe Biden was also called a moderate before being elected.  There is, of course, the China Virus; she can’t afford for it to be perceived as going away and not needing her leadership.  

By-the-way, why is Cuomo taking 14 days to resign?  Be afraid – be very afraid.  The last time he said 14 days until something he didn’t mean it.  What havoc can he wreak in this period?  We can hope he will only be writing another book, hoping for another big payday.

One has to wonder what the future holds for Mario’s other kid, “Fredo” who isn’t exactly burning up the TV ratings?  Is there a future where there will be “no mo’ Cuomo”?  He has a personal scandal going because he advised his brother on this scandal while still maintaining his position as an “independent journalist”.  Of course, at CNN that’s not a scandal, that’s business as usual.