Several Democrats who spoke privately to National Journal lamented that Cuomo accepted $87,000 in campaign contributions from David Koch and his wife during the 2010 cycle—more than double the $34,000 that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took. Cuomo has also accepted donations from John Catsimatidis, de Blasio's Republican opponent. And he earned praise and money from Home Depot cofounder Ken Langone, a major GOP donor who started the group Republicans for Cuomo. (Langone recently caught flak for comparing progressives to Nazis.)
The Langone connection and the friendliness with Catsimatidis I knew about - the $87,000 in Koch cash in 2010 I did not know about.
A while back I used to call Cuomo "Tea Party Governor Cuomo" before I changed it to "Sheriff Andy" when he started the Moreland Commission to allegedly "clean up Albany" (and we've seen how far that's gone, with Preet Bharara having to take over the Moreland Commission investigations because Andy shut the whole thing down in a move of political expediency.)
But with the news that Cuomo took more than double the Koch money that Tea Party Governor Scott Walker took, I think I may have to go back to calling Sheriff Andy 'Tea Party Governor Cuomo" - not as a pejorative so much as an accurate description of who he is, where he gets his money from and why he pushes the policies he does.
More and more politicians, including Democrats, now have Koch addictions.
ReplyDeleteYes, but it's good to get Cuomo's addiction public and put it into perspective with the money Walker got from them.
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