Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

R.I.P Mario Cuomo: The Elizabeth Warren of the 1980s Dies
National Review ^ | 01/02/2014 | John Fund

Posted on 01/02/2015 6:05:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The death of Mario Cuomo today at age 82 marks the final end for one of the great “what if” figures in American politics.

Today, the Left’s standard bearer is Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts who was first elected to office only two years ago. Back in the 1980s, the liberal heartthrob was Mario Cuomo.

The governor of New York from 1983 to 1995, Cuomo was long considered the great hope of the Left, especially after his riveting keynote speech to the 1984 Democratic National Convention. In it he contrasted Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as a “shining city on a hill” with what he claimed was a more accurate description.

“There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city,” Cuomo told the Democratic delegates, who went on to nominate Walter Mondale and lose 49 out of 50 states that year.

But liberals believed Cuomo had the magic to win and relentlessly promoted him as the Democratic stand bearer in 1988 and 1992. Both times, Cuomo stalled and finally declined to run, earning the nickname “Hamlet on the Hudson.”

Cuomo ultimately turned down another big opportunity after Bill Clinton became president in 1992. Last year, Clinton told a New York fundraiser that he offered Cuomo a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

“He is the first man in the history of this country to turn down a position on the Supreme Court, and it’s because he was dedicated to New York,” Clinton told a gathering of donors to Help USA, a homeless aid organization founded by current New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Mario’s son.

Only 18 months after he turned down the Supreme Court appointment, Cuomo was defeated for a fourth term by Republican George Pataki. He retired then from politics at the age of 62.

A decent man who believed passionately in his liberal ideology, Cuomo lived to see the economic policies he champion gradually leave the state he so loved in steady decline. Just last week, the Census Bureau announced that New York has been surpassed in population by economically thriving Florida as the nation’s third-largest state.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: cuomo; death; elizabethwarren; johnfund; mariocuomo; radicalleft
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-50 next last
To: CharlesOConnell
Speak no ill of the dead.

Tripe.

Roil In Perdition, Cuomo, and take your commie boy along for the ride.

21 posted on 01/02/2015 6:31:30 AM PST by tomkat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Mario—this one was not super.


22 posted on 01/02/2015 6:34:28 AM PST by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Old Sarge
You should see all the comments of love on the NY news feed on Facebook. Lot's of young minorities are sad about the death of EL Suprmeo. People that were not even born yet when he was dictator of New York. It's very bizarre.
23 posted on 01/02/2015 6:36:14 AM PST by angcat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
A decent man who believed passionately in his liberal ideology

OXYMORON ALERT !!!


24 posted on 01/02/2015 6:40:58 AM PST by Iron Munro (Conservative Epitaph: Don't Cry For Me , You Still Have Two More Years Of Obama)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
I did a deal with the state of ny right before cuomo became the gov and he was OK to do business with.

I mean real business, not payola, or graft, just a deal where ny got what they wanted and we got what we wanted and no one got greased.

He always made the meetings on time and we didn't waste any time and he wasn't looking for gifts and freebies.

He was running for gov at the time so maybe he was just keeping his bad habits out of sight, but I didn't get my crook/dar up during our meetings.

While I didn't and don't like his lefty politics, he was an honorable man during our business dealings. That's about as many good things that I can say about any lefty, communist, lib.

Buono Fortuna, Mario.

25 posted on 01/02/2015 6:42:26 AM PST by USS Alaska (Exterminate the terrorist savages, everywhere.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Good riddance to bad rubbish.


26 posted on 01/02/2015 6:51:39 AM PST by dware ("White Privilege" stems from one's ability to lace up work boots and read a work schedule)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Ding Dong, the abortion Ken is dead. Now let this heretic explain to our Lord and Jesus why he advocated for the murder of so many children in this country. Or in the words of Desi Arnez “he got some big splainin’ to do”! He is THE PRIMARY REASON there are so many pro-abort Catholics in NYC. He told them all it was OK to be a catholic and still murder the unborn.


27 posted on 01/02/2015 6:53:20 AM PST by NKP_Vet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Texas Eagle
“There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city,”
Spoken in 1984 - just as Reaganomics was bringing our economy roaring back. As Reagan put it,
Now, I knew I was in for it when the hostile critics dubbed our economic plan Reaganomics. They said we couldn't do it. But while the naysayers complained, we went to work.

Today inflation has fallen from more than 12 percent to 1.8 percent for the last 12 months. Interest rates are down. Mortgage rates are down. And we've seen the creation of almost 11.7 million jobs in less than the last 4 years -- more jobs than Western Europe and Japan put together have created in the past 10 years. You know, I really, though, found out our economic plan was working when they stopped calling it Reaganomics.


28 posted on 01/02/2015 6:54:46 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Darksheare

“Why not?
I live in NY, some of it under the Cuomo regime.
He was a POS, and death didn’t come for him soon enough.
He was a liar, a fraud, in no ways a decent man.
He was corrupt, completely incapable of basic moral decency.
And NY carries on in his tradition.
*spits”

And his worthless pro-abort, queer “marriage” loving, shacked up with his girlfriend son carries on the family tradition.


29 posted on 01/02/2015 6:55:47 AM PST by NKP_Vet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Texas Eagle

I do not remember Cuomo being as virulent and hate filled as the current senator.


30 posted on 01/02/2015 7:13:50 AM PST by KC_Conspirator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Mario Cuomo gave a speech full of nothing and will be forgotten.
Ronald Reagan will be remembered.


31 posted on 01/02/2015 7:19:19 AM PST by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: angcat

That alone tells me, those screen names are either robot names, or paid trolls who just got instructions to spam social media...


32 posted on 01/02/2015 7:23:18 AM PST by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: sphinx

I grew up in the People’s Republic and was stationed back there for 4 years while St Mario the Pious emitted his Smug as head of the Politburo

One of the most telling things I saw was so small.

Local Merchants were seeing a small windfall as people just got tired of turning in the Bottles and cans for the 5 cent deposit.

St Mario decreed that the unrefunded nickel belonged to the state and not the merchant.

These were the merchants that had to set aside space and dedicate employees to the collection of, storage, and transport of the returned bottles and cans.

The unrefunded nickels only partially went to pay for the original unfunded mandate of the state. Alas, St Mario wanted his goddamned nickel.


33 posted on 01/02/2015 7:28:16 AM PST by 5Madman2 (There is no such thing as an experienced suicide bomber)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: CharlesOConnell
Speak no ill of the dead.

Didn't William Jennings Bryant say something to the effect, "I've never killed a man, or wished a man dead, but I have savored a good many obituary."? I cannot wait to savor the obituary of the "Mario Cuomo of two-thousand-teens", Princess Fauxahantas.

34 posted on 01/02/2015 7:34:36 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

Isn’t that the visual difference between Conservative and Progressive? Two entirely opposite views of how the world should turn.


35 posted on 01/02/2015 7:51:24 AM PST by Happy1947
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Happy1947

Yep. Reagan saw America as a shining city on the hill and Cuomo saw a tale of two cities.


36 posted on 01/02/2015 7:57:30 AM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Sort of funny that yahoo didn’t have any headlines on this earlier. The only mention of his death was in their videos and it was number 40-something. Very telling.


37 posted on 01/02/2015 8:15:41 AM PST by bgill (CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Sam Donaldson must be in severe depression!!


38 posted on 01/02/2015 8:26:46 AM PST by ontap
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
“There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city,” Cuomo told the Democratic delegates, who went on to nominate Walter Mondale and lose 49 out of 50 states that year.

So he gave this supposedly great speech, the result of which was his party's candidate losing 49 of 50 states. So what exactly are his great accomplishments?

39 posted on 01/02/2015 9:23:23 AM PST by Rummyfan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
I know only one thing about Mario Cuomo now...

He went on to his reward...

40 posted on 01/02/2015 9:25:25 AM PST by ColdSteelTalon (Light is fading to shadow, and casting its shroud over all we have known...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-50 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson