Andrew Cuomo is as politically deft as any New York governor since Nelson Rockefeller. He's had his way, for good reasons and bad, on policy and politics.
He's taken hard left-wing social positions and gotten them through a state Senate nominally in the hands of Republicans. He's taken hard right-wing positions on economic policy and gotten them past the leftish Assembly.
He scares both labor and business, runs agencies and authorities with an iron fist, blesses the split among Senate Democrats, brings casinos to upstate, raises millions (more than $33 million so far this election), beats up the occasional dissident mayor (see Miner, Syracuse and de Blasio, New York City). New York's government is many things, but it's no longer dysfunctional.
Impressive, no?
Yet, as his father could tell him, when you lose your touch, all bets are off.
There's no reason to panic in Cuomoland. He's odds-on for a big victory in November. But the smooth machine has hit some speed bumps, especially if he still harbors national ambitions.
It all comes back to the early decision to move left on social issues and right on economic issues. "Progr-actionary" politics, as one gifted journalist called it.
We know about gay marriage and guns for the left. For the right, he pushed the upstate economy, tax and spending cuts and corporate giveaways that Paul Ryan and the tea party would endorse. The Republicans and the right have nowhere to go.
The left seems to forgive the economic policies because of victories on social issues. Good re-election politics and a shrewd appeal to national Dems in 2016.
Time to quiet down and let events unroll. But no, he pushes and, one-two-three, things start to change.
He energizes the dispirited right by talking about "extreme conservatives." He energizes the bewildered left by top-of-his-lungs opposition to de Blasio's plan to tax the rich for pre-K, and again with estate and corporate tax cuts for the 1 percent. Now he's energizing Republicans by stepping into their internal decision about who to run for governor. None of it necessary, none of it helpful to a re-election effort framed by his 62.5 percent margin in 2010.
His biggest concern ought to be the growing revolt on the left. It starts with rank-and-file anti-frackers, who don't trust him or the decison-making process. The Green Party is moving toward a challenge. There are lots of union members who have never been on board, feel they have nothing to lose and could join in. Worse, there are stirrings in the Working Families Party, the 800-pound gorilla in state politics.
For a while, it seemed possible for Cuomo to run as the WFP candidate if a public campaign finance law passed. But WFP rank-and-file are getting antsy and trying to stop that deal.
Real opposition to the tax cuts, fracking, the split among Senate Dems, and the take-no-prisoners style is building, and the WFP cannot move where it's membership doesn't want to go.
If these forces get together, Cuomo has a problem. Imagine one Green Party/WFP candidate beating him up from the left and an often underestimated Rob Astorino beating him up from the right.
He'll win. But it won't be pretty. And it muddies a 2016 message to a very progressive national Democratic Party.
Cuomo understands that he's got a brewing revolt on the left and will try to bridge the gap. Whether rank-and-file WFPers and Greenies have gotten so far out of control as to stop the deal is to be seen.
He's been terrific at controlling interest groups. Controlling activists and citizens is a different ball game. He's being tested.
Brodsky is a fellow at the Demos think tank in New York City and at the Wagner School at New York University.