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      It’s Election Season in Germany. No Charisma, Please!

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      The race to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years in office is the tightest in years. But the two leading candidates are anything but exciting, and that’s how Germans like it.BERLIN — The most popular politician who would like to be chancellor isn’t on the ballot. The leading candidate is so boring people compare him to a machine. Instead of “Yes, We Can!” voters are being fired up with promises of “Stability.”Germany is having its most important election in a generation but you would never know it. The newspaper Die Welt recently asked in a headline: “Is this the most boring election ever?”Yes and no.The campaign to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years of her dominating German and European politics is the tightest in Germany since 2005, and it just got tighter. The Social Democrats, written off as recently as a month ago, have overtaken Ms. Merkel’s conservatives for the first time in years.But the campaign has also revealed a charisma vacuum that is at once typical of postwar German politics and exceptional for just how bland Ms. Merkel’s two most likely successors are. No party is polling more than 25 percent, and for much of the race the candidate the public has preferred was none of the above.Whoever wins, however, will have the job of shepherding the continent’s largest economy, making that person one of Europe’s most important leaders, which has left some observers wondering if the charisma deficit will extend to a leadership deficit as well.While the election outcome may be exciting, the two leading candidates are anything but.A campaign billboard in Berlin featuring Mr. Scholz — sometimes known as the “Scholz-o-mat.”John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLess than a month before the vote, the field is being led by two male suit-wearing career politicians — one balding, one bespectacled, both over 60 — who represent the parties that have governed the country jointly for the better part of two decades.There is Armin Laschet, the governor of the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, who is running for Ms. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. And then there is Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat who is Ms. Merkel’s finance minister and vice chancellor.The candidate of change, Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old co-leader of the Greens, has a bold reform agenda and plenty of verve — and has been lagging in the polls after a brief surge in the polls before the summer.It’s a nail-biter, German-style: Who can most effectively channel stability and continuity? Or put another way: Who can channel Ms. Merkel?For now it seems to be Mr. Scholz — a man Germans have long known as the “Scholz-o-mat” or the “Scholz machine” — a technocrat and veteran politician who can seem almost robotically on message. Where others have slipped up in the campaign, he has avoided mistakes, mostly by saying very little.“Most citizens know who I am,” was Mr. Scholz’s pitch to his party before being anointed chancellor candidate, conspicuously echoing Ms. Merkel’s iconic 2013 line to voters: “You know me.”More recently one of his campaign ads showed his reassuring smile with a caption using the female form of the word chancellor, telling voters that he has what it takes to lead the country even though he is a man. “Angela the second,” was the title of a Scholz profile in the magazine Der Spiegel this week.Mr. Scholz has tried so hard to perfect the art of embodying the chancellor’s aura of stability and calm that he has even been photographed holding his hands before him in the chancellor’s signature diamond shape — making what is known as the Merkel rhombus.Mr. Scholz at a campaign rally last week in Berlin. Opponents say he’s trying to sound like Chancellor Merkel.Florian Gaertner/Photothek, via Getty Images“Scholz is trying to be Merkel’s clone all the way down to the rhombus,” said John Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany who has been living in Berlin on and off since the 1960s. “The guy everyone likes best is the most boring guy in the election — maybe in the country. He makes watching water boil seem exciting.”But Germans, political observers point out, love boring.“There are few countries where such a premium is put on being dull,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European history at the University of Oxford who has written about the country.It’s not that Germans are resistant to charisma. When Barack Obama was running for president and delivered a rousing speech at the victory column in Berlin in 2008, 100,000 Germans cheered him on.But they don’t want it in their own politicians. That’s because the last time Germany had a rousing leader it didn’t end well, noted Jan Böhmermann, a popular TV-host and comedian.The haunting memory of Hitler’s Nazi party winning office in free elections has shaped Germany’s postwar democracy in various ways, Mr. Böhmermann said, “and one of them is that charisma is banned from politics.”Andrea Römmele, dean of the Berlin-based Hertie School, put it this way: “A Trump character could never become chancellor here.”Paradoxically, that’s at least in part thanks to an electoral system bequeathed to Germany by America and its Allies after World War II. Unlike in the American presidential system, German voters don’t get to elect their chancellor directly. They vote for parties; the parties’ share of the vote determines their share of the seats in Parliament; and then Parliament elects the chancellor.And because it just about always takes more than one party to form a government — and this time probably three — you can’t be too rude about the people you might rely on to be your coalition partners.“Your rival today might be your finance minister tomorrow,” Ms. Römmele said.Mr. Laschet, center, campaigning door to door last week in Berlin. He has promised to “secure stability.”Michael Kappeler/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesAs for the chancellor candidates, they are not chosen in primaries but by party officials who tend to pick people like themselves: career politicians who have given years of service to the party machine.Being good on television and connecting with voters doesn’t cut it, said Jürgen Falter, an electoral expert at the University of Mainz. “It’s a strict oligarchic system,” he said. “If we had primaries, Markus Söder would have been the candidate.”Mr. Söder, Bavaria’s ambitious governor, has heaps of beer-tent charisma and is the most popular politician in the country after Ms. Merkel herself. He was eager to run for chancellor, but the conservatives picked Mr. Laschet, a longstanding Merkel ally, not least, Ms. Römmele said, because at the time he looked most like “the continuity candidate.”But Mr. Scholz has beaten him at his game. During a televised debate between the chancellor candidates last Sunday, an exasperated Mr. Laschet accused Mr. Scholz of trying to “sound like Ms. Merkel.”“I find I sound like Olaf Scholz,” Mr. Scholz replied deadpan.“These days you’re doing the rhombus,” Mr. Laschet hit back — before himself invoking the chancellor in his closing statement.“Stability and reliability in difficult times,” he said. “That’s what marked us from Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl to Angela Merkel. The team C.D.U. wants to secure stability.”Recent polls give Mr. Scholz’ Social Democrats the edge with between 23 and 25 percent, followed by 20 to 22 percent for Mr. Laschet’s Christian Democrats, or C.D.U., and around 17 percent for the Greens.From second left: Mr. Laschet, Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party, and Mr. Scholz during a televised debate on Sunday.Pool photo by Michael KappelerTo his fans, Mr. Scholz is a voice of calm and confidence, a pragmatist from Germany’s taciturn north who represents the elusive silent majority. “Liberal, but not stupid,” is how he once described himself.But critics note that while crises have come crashing down on the election campaign — epic floods, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the pandemic — a sense of urgency is missing from the campaigns of the two leading candidates.Much like Mr. Laschet, Mr. Scholz talks about tackling climate change but above all promises stable pensions, safe jobs, a balanced budget and not getting out of coal too soon.“The big story is that we have a world in crisis and there isn’t any sense of real crisis in Germany,” said Mr. Garton Ash of Oxford University.A bold vision for change has never been a vote winner in Germany. Konrad Adenauer, the first postwar chancellor, won an absolute majority for the Christian Democrats by promising “No Experiments.” Helmut Schmidt, a Social Democrat, once famously said, “If you have visions you should go to the doctor.”As for Ms. Merkel, she has come to embody Germany’s distinctive political tradition of change through consensus perhaps more than any of her predecessors by co-governing with her traditional opponents for three out of her four terms.Mr. Böhmermann, the comedian, calls this a “democratic state of emergency” for Germany. “You could say we were well-managed over the last 16 years — or you could say we were anesthetized for 16 years.”“We need vision,” he lamented. “No one dares to articulate a clear political vision, especially the main candidates.”Chancellor Merkel last week at the Parliament in Berlin.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockChristopher F. Schuetze More

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      Kathy Hochul Wants to Make One Thing Clear: She Is Not Cuomo

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      In her first acts as New York’s new governor, Ms. Hochul has sought to distance herself from her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, who resigned under pressure.ALBANY, N.Y. — In her first days as governor of New York, Kathy C. Hochul has gone to great lengths to demonstrate that whatever kind of leadership style she might adopt, it will be far from that of her disgraced predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo.She immediately began providing a more complete coronavirus death toll in New York, releasing figures used by the C.D.C. that put the total at roughly 55,400, which is 12,000 more than the state figures that the Cuomo administration had regularly cited.She introduced a new ethics training requirement for all state employees, and pointedly said the state’s sexual harassment training would have to be done in person — a subtle jab at Mr. Cuomo following allegations that he never completed the state-mandated training.She replaced most of Mr. Cuomo’s inner circle with top staffers of her own. She made a point of meeting with elected officials who warred with Mr. Cuomo, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, even posting a picture on Twitter showing her laughing with the mayor over pastries.In her first week in office, Ms. Hochul has moved intently to disassociate herself from Mr. Cuomo, pursuing policies and a style of governing that cast her as the revitalizing antithesis of her predecessor.She has even gone so far as to avoid his name in her 11-minute public address on Tuesday, and, in the subsequent media blitz, has made mention of Mr. Cuomo by name only three times since taking office.Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, seems focused on carving out her own space as she fills out the remainder of Mr. Cuomo’s term, which expires at the end of 2022. But Ms. Hochul may also be driven by political reasons: Future opponents, including Republicans and Democratic primary challengers, are likely to portray her as an entrenched member of the Cuomo machinery and argue that voters deserve a clean break from him.But Ms. Hochul clearly intends to portray herself as the clean-break candidate.“It’s no secret that the governor and I were not close,” Ms. Hochul told NY1 on Thursday, an assertion she has made several times this week. “He had his own tight inner circle. I created my own space.”Ms. Hochul, a Democrat and former congresswoman from Buffalo who served as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor since 2015, succeeded Mr. Cuomo when he resigned following a state attorney general investigation that concluded that he sexually harassed several women.Almost immediately, Ms. Hochul promised to open a new chapter of transparency and collaboration in state government. That broad proclamation was seen as an inherent rebuke of Mr. Cuomo, who ruled Albany with a heavy hand, using the power and influence he had amassed over more than a decade.How exactly she intends to do that remains to be seen.Ms. Hochul has so far been cautious in setting expectations for the first few months of her administration. She has singled out a handful of immediate problems she can be seen as taking decisive action on during a time of crisis — such as instituting a mask mandate in schools, or helping to expedite getting stalled relief money to struggling renters, landlords and undocumented immigrants.“She’s been smart about thematically separating herself from Cuomo without having to take any big lifts,” said John Kaehny, the executive director at Reinvent Albany, a government watchdog. “They’re picking simple things that the public can understand that are pretty unassailable from the policy perspective, like the mask mandate and releasing the C.D.C. data, and that is going to get her applause.”Ms. Hochul said that she consulted with teachers, school boards, superintendents and parent-teacher associations before issuing a mask mandate for students.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesIndeed, Ms. Hochul did not unveil a grand vision of government or sweeping policy agenda in her first address on Tuesday. Instead, she outlined a narrow, yet urgent, set of priorities she would tackle: responding to the coronavirus and its fallout, and bringing more accountability to Albany. The actions she took this week on those fronts were seen as swift, but also as not-so-subtle admonishments of Mr. Cuomo.Richard N. Gottfried, the longest-serving member of the Assembly and the chairman of its health committee, called the expanded disclosure of Covid deaths “a very refreshing change.” Mr. Gottfried said he received a call from Ms. Hochul’s office to brief him on what the governor would announce in her first address, something he said was unimaginable under Mr. Cuomo.“Maybe it was only symbolic, but symbols at this point are what we go on,” said Mr. Gottfried, a Democrat who has served under nine governors. “Getting a call like that was an unusual and welcome experience.”Despite the early symbolic and stylistic changes, Ms. Hochul still faces hurdles in ridding the State Capitol of the last vestiges of the Cuomo era.One of the main rallying cries among Republicans, and even some Democrats, has been for Ms. Hochul to dismiss Mr. Cuomo’s top health official, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, for his potential involvement in obscuring the nursing home death toll and stonewalling health data from the Legislature last year.Ms. Hochul has not said whether she would retain Dr. Zucker, saying only that she would take up to 45 days to interview Mr. Cuomo’s cabinet officials before making a determination. The decision is complicated by the thorny optics of removing a health commissioner during a pandemic and the practical concerns of finding a replacement since so many health officials have left the state Health Department in recent months.For his part, Dr. Zucker said this week that he was “thrilled” to have Ms. Hochul as governor, suggesting that he was constrained under Mr. Cuomo from publicly disclosing certain death data.“Her leadership allowing me and all of D.O.H. to get the data out is refreshing,” Dr. Zucker said on Thursday. “Her commitment, as she has said, to transparency is revitalizing.”Another holdout from the Cuomo administration is his budget director, Robert Mujica, a close ally of Mr. Cuomo’s who has helmed the state’s finances with an iron grip since 2016 and would play a crucial role as Ms. Hochul prepares to assemble her first state budget.Mr. Mujica is lauded by supporters for his experience and competence, but derided by critics for the opaque manner in which they say he has managed the state’s coffers. His influence in state government is far-reaching: He sits on more than 30 state boards, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.It remains unclear whether Mr. Mujica will remain in the Hochul administration, but he has worked closely with some of Ms. Hochul’s recently recruited staffers, including her transition director, Marissa Shorenstein, and her counsel, Elizabeth Fine.State Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat from Queens, who has met with Ms. Hochul three times since Mr. Cuomo announced his resignation, including at a private meeting Ms. Hochul held with Latino legislators on Thursday, said Ms. Hochul had a “completely different and distinct approach to government.”The outreach by Ms. Hochul, who represented a Republican-leaning district in Congress and is regarded as a Democratic centrist, was noteworthy.“That goes to show, because, ideologically, I would argue I’m actually much more closely aligned with Cuomo than Hochul,” said Ms. Ramos, a member of the party’s left wing. “Unfortunately, her predecessor had chosen to isolate himself and hardly interacted with New Yorkers, whereas Kathy Hochul clearly likes people, and wants to talk to people and walks our streets to do so.”Before Ms. Hochul ordered a universal mask mandate in schools statewide — a divisive issue that Mr. Cuomo was seen as wanting to avoid and had left up to school districts — she held an hourlong Zoom meeting to hear from teachers, school boards, superintendents and parent-teacher associations statewide.Andrew Pallotta, president of the New York State United Teachers union, who was on the call, said Ms. Hochul had “opened up lines of communication,” describing her approach as “a breath of fresh air.”“You can’t ask for more,” Mr. Pallotta said. “It wasn’t, ‘Let me get somebody to be on this call, and then they’ll get back to me and we’ll put 12 committees together.’ It wasn’t that way at all. It was, ‘Here’s the person leading the state actually listening and responding.’”That sentiment was echoed by some county executives, who often learned about Mr. Cuomo’s coronavirus directives through his televised briefings rather than directly from his office.Anthony J. Picente Jr., the executive of Oneida County, who crossed party lines to endorse Mr. Cuomo in 2014, said the consensus among his colleagues was that there would be a “better relationship, at least in terms of communication and openness.”“We carry out what the state Health Department requires and yet were never consulted, never talked to, never a part of the overall discussions and left to pick up the pieces,” he said. “I really believe that’s not going to be the case with Governor Hochul.”Taken together, Ms. Hochul’s first moves as governor could notch her short-term policy wins, earn her good will among stakeholders and differentiate her from Mr. Cuomo to voters still getting to know her, especially as she prepares to run for governor next year.But while union leaders and legislative leaders have welcomed Ms. Hochul’s self-described collaborative approach, some government watchdogs have been more skeptical, expressing cautious optimism while waiting to see just how far Ms. Hochul will go to root out graft in Albany.“It’s a good start,” Mr. Kaehny, the government watchdog director, said. “But everything she’s doing is building up for the June 2022 primary and we’re seeing things through that prism.”Republicans, including one of their leading candidates for governor, Representative Lee Zeldin, have been less forgiving. They have sought to directly link Ms. Hochul to Mr. Cuomo’s cloud of scandals, arguing that it was disingenuous of her to distance herself from him after promoting and supporting his agenda as his second in command.“Ms. Hochul needs to look as though she’s ushering in a new era in Albany, but there will be reminders all along the way that she was, at least ostensibly, Andrew Cuomo’s partner in government for going on seven years,” said William F. B. O’Reilly, a Republican political consultant in New York. “His musk won’t dissipate quickly.”The business community appears encouraged by the team Ms. Hochul has so far assembled. Karen Persichilli Keogh, her top aide, who most recently worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Ms. Fine, who advised President Bill Clinton, are both seasoned political hands with experience in New York and Washington.“She has hit the ground running, acting like a governor, not a politician, which is what we need right now,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business lobbying group. “Yes, a clean break from Cuomo, but continuity where it is necessary for government to meet the health and economic challenges.” More

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      Brian Benjamin Is Kathy Hochul's Pick for N.Y. Lieutenant Governor

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul chose Mr. Benjamin, a state senator from Harlem, to fill the second highest-ranking role in New York’s government.ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy C. Hochul has chosen Brian A. Benjamin, a Democratic state senator from Harlem, to be her lieutenant governor, the second highest-ranking position in New York State, according to two people familiar with the decision.Ms. Hochul, a Democrat from Western New York who was sworn in as the state’s first female governor on Tuesday, is expected to announce the appointment at an event in Harlem on Thursday.The selection of Mr. Benjamin, who is Black, underscored Ms. Hochul’s attempt to diversify her ticket as she mounts her first campaign for governor next year, choosing a potential running mate who could help broaden her appeal in the voter-heavy New York City region.Mr. Benjamin is the senior assistant majority leader in the State Senate, where he has been a vocal proponent of criminal justice reforms. He ran unsuccessfully for city comptroller earlier this year, placing fourth in a crowded Democratic primary. Ms. Hochul’s office declined to comment. Mr. Benjamin, 44, who represents a large swath of Upper Manhattan, did not respond to requests for comment.A lieutenant governor becomes governor when the governor dies, resigns or is impeached. He or she also serves as acting governor when the governor is absent or disabled.But the position, which became vacant as a result of Ms. Hochul’s ascension after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s resignation, has traditionally served a mostly ceremonial role, entrusted with few statutory duties besides the formality of serving as president of the State Senate.Ms. Hochul, who was recruited by Mr. Cuomo as his running mate in 2014, did not have a close relationship with her predecessor during her nearly seven years as lieutenant governor; for example, she was not a part of Mr. Cuomo’s coronavirus briefings.Pointing to the work dynamic between President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Ms. Hochul has said recently that she wanted to avoid sidelining whoever she picked as lieutenant governor, and entrust them with a policy portfolio.Ms. Hochul had indicated that she intended to select someone from New York City. Ms. Hochul, who is white, approached a handful of city politicians who are people of color, including State Senator Jamaal Bailey, a rising star in Bronx politics; Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, the leader of Brooklyn’s Democratic Party; and Rubén Díaz Jr., the outgoing Bronx borough president.She settled on Mr. Benjamin, a graduate of Brown University and Harvard University who worked at Morgan Stanley and was a managing partner at Genesis Companies, a real estate firm with a focus on affordable housing, before entering politics.In 2017, he ran for the State Senate seat vacated by Bill Perkins, who had won a seat in the City Council. He emerged as the Democratic Party’s pick for the seat after a convention vote in March and went on to easily defeat his Republican opponent in the overwhelmingly blue district, assuming office that June.As a senator, Mr. Benjamin has backed efforts to close Rikers Island and supported legislation on a range of criminal justice issues, from ending cash bail and reforming discovery to ending solitary confinement and reforming parole laws.He has also sponsored bills to get banks to divest from private for-profit prisons and create a so-called “rainy day fund” that New York City could tap into during fiscal emergencies. Mr. Benjamin said earlier this year that he supported the defund the police movement.Michael Blake, a former assemblyman from the Bronx who endorsed Mr. Benjamin in the comptroller primary, stressed that he should be recognized for his skills and experience, not just how his race and standing among Black voters could aid Ms. Hochul politically.“I think it’s important to realize that Brian is talented, and he is also Black,” Mr. Blake said.“People are always paying attention to talent even when there is no success,” Mr. Blake added. “He ran for city comptroller — I think he was the most qualified — and lost, but at the end of the day, God had bigger plans for him.”The competitive Democratic primary for comptroller included Corey Johnson, the speaker of the City Council, and Councilman Brad Lander, who emerged victorious as the standard-bearer of the party’s left flank. Mr. Benjamin finished fourth, behind Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor.During the primary, Mr. Benjamin’s campaign relinquished nearly two dozen donations after The City raised questions about their authenticity.Mr. Benjamin’s poor showing in the primary could raise questions about how many votes from New York City he could help Ms. Hochul attract as a running mate, especially if the governor faces a primary challenge from a person of color.Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, has said he is actively exploring a run for governor and Letitia James, the state attorney general, is considered a strong candidate, although she has given no indication that she intends to run.“Brian did not have a successful run citywide, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have a successful run statewide,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “He has a financial background and could galvanize Black voters. He would translate well upstate.”Mr. Benjamin is a close friend of Keith L.T. Wright, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Manhattan, who backed Mr. Benjamin’s Senate candidacy. On Wednesday, Mr. Wright praised Ms. Hochul’s choice.“He’s bright, he’s intelligent and I think he’ll be a great pick,” Mr. Wright said. “I think he would be someone who would roll up his sleeves and get to work.”Charles B. Rangel, the former congressman and New York political icon, described the selection of Mr. Benjamin as “a tremendous opportunity for the governor to broaden her base now and make her case for re-election.”Some wondered whether Mr. Benjamin’s ascension could signal a resurgence of Black political power in Harlem, which has ceded ground to Brooklyn.David N. Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, hailed from Harlem and was a part of the “Gang of Four,” a group of African-American elected officials who had an outsize influence on state politics. David A. Paterson, who served as the state’s first Black governor and lieutenant governor, was connected to that history through his father, Basil Paterson, a former state senator. Mr. Rangel and Percy E. Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president and a civil rights leader, were the other members of the group.“It’s nice to see that younger generation of Harlem politicians come into their own,” said Lupé Todd-Medina, a Brooklyn-based Democratic communications strategist who counts Mr. Benjamin as a former client.Even so, many of the leading elected officials in the city and the state are Black and hail from Brooklyn.“The public advocate is from Brooklyn, the state attorney general is from Brooklyn, the incoming mayor is from Brooklyn and the possible first Black speaker of the House is from Brooklyn,” Ms. Todd-Medina added, “so I think that speaks for itself.” More

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      Kathy Hochul’s Rise to the Governorship of New York

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      A western New Yorker with centrist Democratic roots, she is described as both tough and disarming. She is also relatively untested.As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo barreled into the 2018 primary season, buffeted by criticisms from the increasingly powerful left wing of the Democratic Party, his team privately worried that he needed a more progressive running mate or a person of color with deeper ties downstate.Publicly, he suggested that Kathy Hochul, his moderate lieutenant from Buffalo, might be better suited running for Congress. His camp floated potential replacements, including the current state attorney general, Letitia James.Those efforts were not lost on Ms. Hochul — indeed, his allies asked her multiple times if she would consider pulling out of the race, an adviser to Ms. Hochul said. But she ran and won re-election anyway, giving no public indication of any daylight with the governor.Three years later, it is Mr. Cuomo who is being replaced by Ms. Hochul, as she moves to become New York’s first female governor after he resigned in disgrace. But the tensions over the 2018 Democratic ticket remain a revealing episode, illustrating both Ms. Hochul’s strengths and vulnerabilities as she takes on one of the most consequential and challenging jobs in American politics.Behind her mild-mannered style, zeal for meeting voters and earnest tweets in support of “#BicycleDay” and “#NationalCerealDay,” she is a shrewd politician who has been underestimated at pivotal moments, her allies say.“No one will ever describe my administration as a toxic work environment,” Ms. Hochul said during her first news conference after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesBut when she takes office on Aug. 24, she will also be the first governor in more than a century to have deep roots in western New York, in a state where the political center of gravity is the more liberal environs of New York City. Cognizant of that, Ms. Hochul on Sunday said she wants her lieutenant governor to be from New York City.And while she championed the Cuomo administration’s record — which included some major progressive achievements despite Mr. Cuomo’s frequent clashes with the left — earlier in her career she was a relatively conservative Democrat. More

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      How Andrew Cuomo’s Exit Tarnished a Legacy and Dimmed a Dynasty

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      Andrew M. Cuomo always cared about his place in history.And so, early in his governorship, he invited Robert Caro, the Pulitzer-prize winning biographer and historian of power, for a private audience in Albany. The pitch had been for Mr. Caro to share lessons from the legacy of Robert Moses, the master builder who ruthlessly rolled over his opponents to remake New York in the past century.But over cookies at the Capitol, it quickly became clear that Mr. Cuomo would be doing most of the talking. For close to two hours, he spoke admiringly about Mr. Moses, outlined his own governing philosophy and regaled Mr. Caro with his ambitions to build big — overhauling bridges, airports and more. Then, the governor politely declared the meeting over.“It was an arrogant and angering thing to do,” Mr. Caro, now 85, recalled in an interview. “To think I had given a day of my life to have him lecture me.”Imposing his will on others to accommodate his agenda and ambitions has been a hallmark of Mr. Cuomo’s career, from his role as chief enforcer for his father, the three-term governor Mario Cuomo, through his own decade-plus reign as New York’s unrelenting chief executive. He trampled lawmakers, lashed his own staff and browbeat political officials — in both parties, but often fellow Democrats — throughout a steady rise that saw him accumulate power and enemies in almost equal measure.His strong-arming often worked. Mr. Cuomo pushed through some of the very infrastructure projects he foretold in his talk with Mr. Caro, including replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge and overhauling La Guardia Airport.For more than 40 years, the Cuomo name has been almost synonymous with Democratic governance in New York, with a Cuomo running for statewide office in every election but one since 1974.Now, suddenly, it stands for something else.The first accusation of sexual harassment against Mr. Cuomo came in December, then another in late February, and then another, and then calls for investigations and resignations and ultimately, an independent investigation from the office of the state attorney general. The damning final report on Aug. 3 corroborated or lent credence to the accounts of 11 women alleging various degrees of harassment and misconduct by Mr. Cuomo, including one accusation of groping.Facing almost certain impeachment, Mr. Cuomo announced his resignation on Tuesday, even as he denied the harassment claims and any inappropriate touching.“It’s a stain that’s always going to be there,” said Robert Abrams, who served as New York attorney general while Mr. Cuomo’s father was governor. The accusations and his stepping down, Mr. Abrams said, would surely be etched into the opening lines of Mr. Cuomo’s eventual obituary.Andrew Cuomo, far right, was preparing to run for a fourth term, which would have surpassed his father, the three-term New York governor Mario Cuomo.Keith Meyers/The New York TimesIt was a fall so swift that observers could be forgiven for alternating between calling it a Greek and a Shakespearean tragedy. An upscale sweater shop that a year ago had hawked “Cuomosexual” and “Cuomo for president” wares was now offering free embroidery to remove that stitching and replace it with “Believe survivors” (or any other phrase).Mr. Cuomo will no longer equal the 12-year tenure served by his late father, whose reputation as an orator and icon of liberalism has forever shadowed his son’s career. The younger Mr. Cuomo wore a pair of his late father’s shoes for his own third inauguration, and in recent days his aspiration for a fourth term — to be the longest-serving Cuomo — evaporated.“I love New York,” Mr. Cuomo said in his resignation speech on Tuesday. “Everything I have ever done has been motivated by that love.”Mr. Cuomo and his allies have argued that his methods were in service of taming a notoriously unruly state apparatus. Most prominently, he quarterbacked same-sex marriage through the divided Legislature in his first six months as governor, corralling conservative Democrats and recalcitrant Republicans alike to make New York then the largest state to allow it.There would be more: a gun-safety package and timely balanced budgets, a phased-in $15 minimum wage and other crucial infrastructure investments, including the new Moynihan Train Hall and the Second Avenue subway.“Historians are going to have to be honest about the accomplishments that he notched,” said Harold Holzer, who worked for Mr. Cuomo’s father and drove Mr. Caro to the meeting in Albany. Now the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, Mr. Holzer summed up the younger Mr. Cuomo’s legacy as: “Flawed human being and a great governor.”But where exactly Mr. Cuomo’s love of the state ended, and his pursuit of power and control began, has long been a blurry line. Former advisers have grappled with that question in recent therapy sessions, text chains and over drinks.“Toxic, hostile, abusive,” Joon H. Kim, one of the lawyers who led the inquiry, quoted witnesses describing the Cuomo office culture. “Fear, intimidation, bullying, vindictive.”Mr. Cuomo announced his resignation at his Manhattan office, attributing his behavior with women to generational differences. Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesAmong Mr. Cuomo’s former closest confidantes, there has been a recent reconsideration of how necessary his tactics truly were. “Did we all create a patina around the governor that gave him more latitude than he deserved?” said Christine Quinn, the former New York City Council speaker and a former Cuomo ally.Mr. Cuomo has been characteristically unrepentant about his style. In his first post-resignation interview, with New York Magazine, he said: “You can’t charm the nail into a board. It has to be hit with a hammer.”Still, that heavy-handedness had a crucial side effect: The governor was fatally isolated at his time of political need.In resigning, Mr. Cuomo said he “didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn” on sexual harassment. He left out that, as governor, he had done some of the redrawing as he signed legislation to impose new protections against sexual harassment. A day after the bill-signing, Mr. Cuomo asked a female state trooper why she did not wear a dress, according to the report.Now the 63-year-old governor is days away from unemployment and still facing criminal investigations into his conduct with women. Federal authorities also have been examining his administration’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, and the state attorney general is looking into the use of state resources for Mr. Cuomo’s memoir last year.“I am sure he feels like he has enormous unfinished business left to do,” said Charlie King, Mr. Cuomo’s running mate for lieutenant governor in 2002 and one of the few people who counseled Mr. Cuomo to the end. “And that, more than anything, will stick with him as he closes the gates at Eagle Street and says goodbye to the governor’s mansion.”Eyeing the history booksAndrew Cuomo in 1988, when he was president of Help Inc., a nonprofit agency that helped provide housing to the homeless.Suzanne DeChillo/The New York TimesFrom the start, Andrew Mark Cuomo had a knack for vivid political imagery and a flair for exuding his dominance. He conducted interviews while lighting cigarettes in his office in the 1980s and puffing cigars in a Manhattan park in the early 2000s. Behind the scenes, he was known to shape stories with off-the-record chats.His first run for office, in 2002, was a flop, when he dropped out of the primary even before getting a chance to match up against the Republican, Gov. George Pataki, who had ousted his father in 1994.But he quickly spun a comeback narrative of contrition that propelled him to become attorney general four years later. Successive implosions of Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Gov. David Paterson in scandal put him on a glide path to the governor’s mansion by 2010.Even before he had won, Mr. Cuomo was eyeing the history books — sending copies of a biography of former Gov. Hugh L. Carey to labor leaders that October. He said he had learned from the hard-charging Mr. Spitzer’s mistakes, too.“Lesson 1 from Spitzer,” Mr. Cuomo said then. “Don’t alienate the Legislature on Day 1.”“It’s a stain that’s always going to be there,” Robert Abrams, who served as attorney general during Mario Cuomo’s governorship, said of Andrew Cuomo’s legacy. Nathaniel Brooks for The New York TimesIt took Mr. Cuomo a little longer, but by this year, he had precious few friends in Albany.His winner-take-all approach to politics — with the executive always winning — grew wearisome for legislators as they saw their ideas either repeatedly stomped on or co-opted (and sometimes both).A centrist, especially on fiscal policy, Mr. Cuomo triangulated between the parties to curb the most progressive elements of his party.For years, he had tacitly backed a division among Democrats in Albany, when a breakaway faction of Senate Democrats formed a power-sharing agreement with the Republicans. Mr. Cuomo long claimed he was powerless to reunite the party — until he helped broker an accord to do just that in 2018.The Path to Governor Cuomo’s ResignationCard 1 of 6Plans to resign. More

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      Don't Underestimate Kathy Hochul, New York's Next Governor

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      Kathy Hochul, on the cusp of becoming New York’s first woman governor, has been consigned to a strange limbo for the next 12 days because of Andrew Cuomo’s time-delayed resignation — a lag she has made clear is not her preference.But Mr. Cuomo’s slow goodbye may be a blessing in disguise for Ms. Hochul, and not just because it gives her time to put together a trusted team and get her arms around the many significant challenges facing the state.It also gives New Yorkers time to figure out who the heck she is — and to learn that she is not someone to be underestimated, as some of us who have long watched her know. Ms. Hochul has made a whole career out of biding her time, seizing opportunities, and cannily remolding herself to address shifting constituencies.What’s critical to understand about Ms. Hochul — and it may sound like a small thing, but it’s not — is that she finds ways to make the most of her position.Her most recent one, the lieutenant governor’s job, is largely ceremonial in New York, with no official policy portfolio and little opportunity to establish an agenda. And until this month, she has been far from a household name: Even some seasoned TV anchors and reporters covering the governor’s downfall and resignation struggled to pronounce “Hochul” (it’s a hard “c,” like “cool,” not the soft “ch” of “church”).But Ms. Hochul is seemingly indefatigable, known to pack her day full of public events — sometimes beginning and ending at opposite ends of the state. In the process, she has established strong ties with a wide array of political stakeholders and power brokers.In doing so she has created a profile for herself well beyond her political base in Buffalo, which has always been viewed as something of a backwater by the downstate-dominated political class. The last true upstate governor was a Cortland County native, Nathan Miller, elected in 1920. George Pataki claimed the upstate mantle, but he hailed from Westchester County, which is really a New York City suburb.Her experience in western New York is also revealing. Her unlikely 2011 special election victory in a Republican-dominated congressional district briefly captured media attention outside the Empire State. She was the first Democrat to hold the seat in 40 years. But less than two years later, her district redrawn to become even more G.O.P.-dominant, Hochul lost a tight race to the Republican Chris Collins.While running for Congress as an “independent Democrat,” Ms. Hochul was endorsed by the N.R.A. She regularly accepted the Conservative Party line in local races, and while serving as Erie County clerk, she took on Gov. Eliot Spitzer — who had appointed her to the role — when she opposed his plan to let undocumented immigrants obtain driver’s licenses.That played well in western New York, which leans right, but made Ms. Hochul a lightning rod for the left. Eleven years later, in a different position with a broader constituency, Ms. Hochul vociferously supported Mr. Cuomo’s push for the same immigration policy Mr. Spitzer had failed to realize and cheered when the so-called Green Light bill became law.New York elected officials have a tradition of shifting positions as they move up the political food chain. Kirsten Gillibrand’s transformation from a Blue Dog congresswoman to an outspoken progressive senator is Exhibit A. But some on the left remain skeptical about Ms. Hochul. She has work to do to unite the notoriously fractious Democratic Party.That may prove to be an impossible task, given the growing schism between the party’s liberal wing and its more moderate members. Difficult debates are looming in Albany next year, particularly around single-payer health care — a top priority for Democratic Socialists, who are growing their number in the New York State Legislature.But Ms. Hochul will be up for the challenge. Her folksy mannerisms and kill-them-with-kindness approach belie a steely and savvy operator.That prowess was on display in 2018 when Ms. Hochul outmaneuvered Mr. Cuomo as he sought to dump her from his third-term re-election ticket while facing a primary challenge from the progressive activist and actress Cynthia Nixon. Ms. Hochul herself was fending off a primary opponent: Jumaane Williams, who is now the New York City public advocate but was then a Brooklyn councilman.Ms. Hochul rejected the governor’s public suggestion that she run for her old House seat, calling his bluff. She knew he could not afford to force out his loyal lieutenant and alienate upstate voters, or, for that matter, women — especially not as he faced a female challenger. He was stuck with her.She won the primary and cruised to a general election victory at Mr. Cuomo’s side: She had beaten Albany’s political chess master at his own game.Now that she plans to seek a full term in 2022 for the office she is about to inherit, Ms. Hochul has just over 14 months to convince New York voters, as well as Democratic leaders and allies, of her competence and progressive credibility. She is already seeking to separate herself from her predecessor and quell accusations that she stood silently by while he created a toxic work environment and harassed multiple women. (Ms. Hochul insists she had no knowledge of that, but Mr. Cuomo’s bullying and strong-arm tactics have long been well known).Ms. Hochul faces many challenges: the surging Delta variant, an uptick of urban violent crime, annual budget battles and the growing list of 2022 wannabes. But she starts with a well of good will and a reputation for being tough but not abusive. “No one will ever describe my administration as a toxic work environment,” she told reporters on Wednesday. For the time being, that should be more than enough.Liz Benjamin is a former reporter who covered New York politics and government for two decades. She’s now the managing director for Albany at Marathon Strategies, a communications and strategic consulting firm.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Cuomo Has $18 Million in Campaign Cash. What Can He Do With It?

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      The huge war chest is the most money retained by a departing New York politician in recent memory.Even after his resignation takes effect in less than two weeks, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will still control the largest pot of campaign cash in New York politics, an $18 million war chest amassed in apparent preparation for a run at a fourth term next year.That prospect now seems remote: Mr. Cuomo, accused of sexually harassing nearly a dozen women, announced Tuesday that he would step down as he faced the threat of impeachment and a chorus of calls for his resignation.But his huge stock of campaign funds — the most money retained by a departing New York politician in recent memory — affords him a range of possibilities, including the chance to attempt an eventual comeback or to play a role in the state’s political life by donating to other candidates.Mr. Cuomo is far from the first top New York elected official to abruptly leave office. What is remarkable, and has drawn attention in Albany political circles, is the magnitude of money still at his disposal. It is more than 10 times as much as Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is poised to take his place, has in her campaign account.When Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor in 2008 in a prostitution scandal, he had most recently reported $2.9 million in the bank. Eric Schneiderman, the former attorney general, had about $8.5 million in his campaign account when he stepped down in 2018 after several women accused him of assaulting them.After each official left office, their campaigns reached out to donors and offered to refund contributions. The Schneiderman campaign did so in emails to major donors who contributed large sums in the months before his resignation, according to a person who worked on the effort, and eventually gave back nearly $1.7 million.When Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor, he had less than $3 million in his campaign fund.Damon Winter/The New York TimesThe Spitzer campaign did so more broadly, emailing every donor and offering to refund as much of their contributions as possible, a top official on the campaign said. Supporters felt betrayed, the person said, and the refunds were a means of trying to make it up to those who had believed in Mr. Spitzer. By the next filing period, his campaign had returned roughly half its remaining campaign funds.Mr. Cuomo raised more than $2 million this year, including during a $10,000-a-plate event in late June — while the state attorney general’s investigation was underway — that drew longtime supporters and union leaders.A person familiar with the governor’s campaign said that so far, there had not been many requests for refunds. The campaign finance director did not respond to requests for comment on refunds or on how Mr. Cuomo intended to use his remaining funds.State campaign finance rules limit how Mr. Cuomo can spend the money, campaign finance experts said. He cannot use the money, for example, to pay himself or purchase a new car or rent a house once he leaves the governor’s mansion later this month.Nor can he use the funds to run for federal office or in New York City, where the campaign finance rules are more stringent. When Mr. Spitzer attempted a political comeback in 2013, running for New York City comptroller, he relied on family money. (He lost.)Mr. Cuomo is permitted to give to nonprofits, provided the groups are registered in New York and he does not have connections to them.He can also make political donations to candidates or to state and local party organizations and has the means to do so in many races. Such contributions can be a way to buttress like-minded candidates and are usually welcomed, particularly in tight races. But candidates may be wary of accepting money from Mr. Cuomo.And he is free to spend the money on anything that would be construed as campaign-related. In that, there can be some room for interpretation, campaign finance lawyers said. He could spend it on an effort at rehabilitating his image or even on travel, so long as the activities could be pegged in some way to his past government service or a future campaign for state office.“The law is not precise when it comes to the use of excess campaign funds,” said Kenneth A. Gross, an expert in campaign finance law. “How they can be used depends on the facts.”What is clear is that Mr. Cuomo could use the campaign funds to conduct polling or create political ads and test the waters for a comeback. Eric Schneiderman, the former attorney general, had about $8.5 million in his campaign account when he stepped down in 2018.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesPeople driven out of Albany amid scandal or criminal investigation have often turned to their campaign coffers to cover legal fees, though campaign finance attorneys said there were limits to the practice.The Path to Governor Cuomo’s ResignationCard 1 of 6Plans to resign. More