Things To Remember About Cuomo's Second Term

This Crains piece is more than a month old, but it bears reposting as we get closer to Governor Cuomo's second term and his State of the State:

"Cuomo and his team aren't in the same position as they were when they first walked in the door with a massive mandate," said Darren Dopp, a Democratic consultant who previously worked for Mario Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer.

"Four years later, the media is thoroughly antagonistic, the left is resurgent, public-sector unions are adversarial, and the Legislature, after repeatedly deferring for four years, wants to reassert itself," he continued. "Add it all up, and the second term is going to be much more challenging than the first."

Cuomo's going to push for a large charter expansion, more teacher beatings and the "breaking" of the public school monopoly in this next term.

Given that he won just 11 of the state's 57 counties outside of NYC after outraising his GOP opponent 9 to 1 during the election season and given that his 2014 victory margin was well under his 2010 victory margin, Cuomo's got no mandate to do anything.

Add that to the points Dopp makes about the antagonistic media, the resurgent left, the adversarial unions (at least among the rank and file), and the Legislature looking to settle some scores, and what we have is a great starting place to beat Cuomo on all his education reform proposals.