Thursday, January 01, 2015

Former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo, Dead at 82

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Liberal Democrat Mario Cuomo, governor of the State of New York from January 1, 1983 to December 31, 1994, has died of natural causes due to heart failure. His death occurred five hours after his oldest son, Governor Andrew Cuomo, was sworn into a second term of office as governor of New York.  At the inauguration, Mario Cuomo, according to his son Andrew during his address, was too ill to attend the ceremony.

The elder Cuomo caught national attention when, during his keynote speech at the 1984 Democrat Party National Convention, he rebutted Reagan's assertion that America is a "Shining city on a hill," calling the United States, instead, a "Tale of Two Cities" where everyone is not doing well, but instead, he explained, we are a country divided between the "haves, and the have nots."

Considerations of running for the presidency, and asking Bill Clinton to remove him from the short list for Supreme Court Justice kept Cuomo in the news.  A hardcore progressive, Cuomo's liberal ideas constantly took center stage, and his history as a lawyer influenced his opinions as an advocate against the death penalty, and in favor of abortion.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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