I remember watching the 1984 Democratic Convention with my late mother, a first generation Italo-American, in which the recently elected New York Governor Mario Cuomo fearlessly challenged President Reagan’s trickle down economics in a passionate speech that electrified the nation. As he finished I saw her wipe away tears and I asked her why she was crying. She told me it was because Cuomo had given voice to the hopes of all immigrants in search of the American Dream.
And so began my quixotic journey that led a young Democratic activist to help organize a ‘Draft Cuomo for President’ sticker campaign in 1992. The eventual winner, Bill Clinton, offered him a seat on the Supreme Court which he turned down saying it would have prevented him from speaking out on the issues he cared about most. Like separation of church and state, where in addresssing the Notre Dame community he said : “We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might someday force theirs on us.”
I will miss his gift of explaining complex public policy with the integrity and intelligence of a brilliant, rational and lucid mind fortified with compassion and charisma. He said that the best leaders campaign in poetry and govern in prose.
President Obama said Cuomo ” rose to be chief executive of the state he loved” and called him ” a determined champion of progressive values, and an unflinching voice for tolerance, inclusiveness, fairness, dignity and opportunity.”
Rest in peace, Governor. You have done your country proud.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Fred, like your mother, my father was a lifelong Democrat and a big fan of Mario Cuomo. I am guessing that, like Cuomo, they were part of the last generation of Italian-Americans who, no matter how successful, still experienced discrimination because of their ethnic background. I don’t know when things changed in an ugly way, when Cuomo’s family story stopped being the story of all Americans and started being about how “we did it by ourselves” and “no one gave us anything.” If we could all get away from that — and back to honoring the hard work and values of all Americans and future Americans — that would be the best tribute I can imagine for this champion of progressive values.
Thank you, Gov. Cuomo for everything you accomplished, and for your wit, intelligence, eloquence, and courage.