Today’s Jonathan Hicks/Pat Healy New York Times follow-up to Wayne Barrett’s Village Voice investigative piece regarding Andrew Cuomo’s ties to a controversial businessman, Andrew Farkas, is striking in that it demonstrates the extent to which Cuomo and his supporters worked to postpone the Voice’s publication of the story until after the Democratic primary.
Putting aside the actual story itself, which has planted the seeds for a damaging series of legit follow-up print and TV stories at the worst possible time for Cuomo, one gets the sense Andy Cuomo is quite prepared to have an ethics dual with Jeanine Pirro, but unprepared to handle this bad press with Mark Green’s campaign still on life support.
Beyond the standard attempt to douse the flames of Barrett’s findings with a diversionary news conference focusing upon endorsements of marginal news value, the stalling moves by Cuomo and his lawyer, reported in today’s Times piece, shows how desperate Cuomo was to push the story back until the hoped-for general election against Pirro.
Beyond the standard libel letter sent to the Voice in hope of delaying publication, the fact Cuomo spent two hours on the phone with Barrett, reported in today’s NYT piece, is remarkable.
Whatever one thinks of Wayne Barrett, he is the last reporter anyone, anywhere, would want to spend two hours on the phone with. That must have been some conversation – and one should be curious how much was on the record, on background and off the record; a very dangerous call which shows just how concerned Cuomo really is.
At the diversionary City Hall news conference yesterday to lay out the endorsements, the Times reported “Mr. Cuomo sidestepped reporters’ questions about his relationship with Mr. Farkas, saying first that he had not read the article and then saying that it described that relationship incorrectly.”
That type of obfuscation will work for a news cycle or two, but the Cuomo body language and gut feel one gets today is that the wolf pack is getting ready to shred its quarry, and that Cuomo and his people need to have their A game to beat back the story, change the subject – whatever. And they should not underestimate and simply discount Pirro, despite her problems, who is the only major statewide GOP candidate with a shot in November.
While Mark Green is clearly and obviously a beneficiary of this development and turn in the race, so is Pirro, for now.