You can criticize Andrew Cuomo for many things. Carpetbagging isn’t one of them. Over the course of his long political career, Cuomo has been accused of being stubborn, a bully , a womanizer and a narcissist.
The list is longer than that. But here’s one label that you can’t hang around the former governor’s neck — that he’s not a real New Yorker. “When you’re governor, you’re still a New Yorker.
New York City is in New York State, and I was obviously very, very involved with New York City,” Cuomo, who is running for mayor, said after a recent campaign rally in Manhattan. “So I’m a New Yorker 100% through and through.” When Cuomo was governor, and he was criticized for calling out right-to-life, pro-assault weapon, anti-gay conservatives, do you think they were identifying him with Peekskill, Uniondale or New York City? Yet, other candidates in the mayor’s race are trying to portray Cuomo, a Queens native, as an out-of-touch suburbanite who doesn’t know the difference between Washington Square and Washington Heights.
The carpetbagging charges have picked up steam amid reports last week that Cuomo, who jumped into the mayor’s race on March 1, only moved into the city in September, after decades in Albany and Westchester. “Andrew Cuomo hasn’t been here, hasn’t thought about us,” said former city comptroller Scott Stringer, one of the many candidates for mayor. “He doesn’t get us, he doesn’t understand us, he doesn’t think about us .