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Mario Cuomo
Jan. 5th, 2015 08:15 amMario Cuomo passed away with the turning of the year. That was a bit of a surprise for me; I thought he died before the turn of the century. I was among those who thought he was practically a sure thing for the presidency ever since he grabbed the spotlight in Mondale's '84 campaign. It was a disastrous campaign, as Mondale was barely able to scratch out his home state, as I recall, but Cuomo became a star. Great voice. And he knew how to sing the liberal song with its egalitarian dreaming, rebutting Reagan, saying that we are not a shining city on a hill, but a tale of two cities, of the rich and of the poor.
Cuomo looked and sounded like the Democrats' strongest champion, but as the presidential quadrennial elections came around again and again, he just would not get in the game, and hence became known as the Hamlet on the Hudson, eventually falling back into relative obscurity, securing only a platform for his son Andrew to get a strong foothold on the political scene, and while Andrew may have much of his father about him, the look and the speaking voice, there is not the same magic, being perhaps too steeped in wealth and privilege, so that he seems like just another party hack rather than a convincing leader of men and nations, not a real dreamer of dreams, but someone who only plays at speaking for the common man without having any real idea what common lives are like, having lived his whole life comfortably ensconced in the city of the rich, far removed from the city of the poor.
Cuomo looked and sounded like the Democrats' strongest champion, but as the presidential quadrennial elections came around again and again, he just would not get in the game, and hence became known as the Hamlet on the Hudson, eventually falling back into relative obscurity, securing only a platform for his son Andrew to get a strong foothold on the political scene, and while Andrew may have much of his father about him, the look and the speaking voice, there is not the same magic, being perhaps too steeped in wealth and privilege, so that he seems like just another party hack rather than a convincing leader of men and nations, not a real dreamer of dreams, but someone who only plays at speaking for the common man without having any real idea what common lives are like, having lived his whole life comfortably ensconced in the city of the rich, far removed from the city of the poor.
