Is This A Healthy Father-Son Relationship?

Phil Reisman at LoHud:

At the funeral Mass, Cuomo talked revealingly about how his father's competitive nature was unleashed during intense, one-on-one games of basketball at the State Police gym in Albany. "We had epic battles, he and I. He hated few things as much as a timid opponent on the basketball court because you cheated him of a real contest."

The son said he wasn't intimidated because, as he noted rather pointedly, he was bigger than his father.

Nevertheless, Mario would taunt, make faces and engage in a constant banter "designed to unnerve you."

"He would hit you in places the human body did not have anatomical defenses," Cuomo said. "The issue of calling fouls plagued us."

And the grudge match between Mario and Andrew wasn't just on the basketball court:

Bill O'Shaughnessy, who was Mario Cuomo's friend and confidante, tells a story that illustrates the delicate nature of the Cuomo father-son relationship.

The backdrop to the story is the SAFE Act, the gun-control proposal that the governor eventually succeeded in pushing through the state Legislature to become law, but not without first absorbing a great deal of criticism from Second Amendment advocates.

During the hottest moments of the public debate, Mario told O'Shaughnessy that he wished his son would defend the gun bill by saying, "I would give up 30 points of my personal popularity if it saves the life of one child."

O'Shaughnessy thought that was a great line, and urged Mario to call his son and suggest he use it. He recalled Mario saying, "The most efficient way to ensure that he won't use it is for me to tell him."

Mario sometimes communicated with Andrew through surrogates. Taking the cue, O'Shaughnessy dutifully called the governor and offered the sound bite, as if he had come up with it himself. He was met with silence on the other end of the line.

Finally Andrew spoke: "Have you been talking to my father?"
 
Then he hung up.

If it wasn't obvious before this, it should be obvious now as more and more stories about the Mario and Andrew relationship surface.

Andrew is working his daddy issues out on the people of the State of New York.

And he's got a lot of issues.

Mario And Andrew

Takeaway from Fred Dicker's Post column today?

Andrew Cuomo is working his daddy issues out on the state:

Friends and associates of Gov. Cuomo privately predict difficult times ahead for the governor as he adjusts to the end of his unusually dependent relationship with his strong-willed father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who died Thursday.

“Andrew holds most people in contempt, but that wasn’t true of his father, one of the few people he genuinely looked to and needed for positive reinforcement,’’ a longtime friend of the younger Cuomo told The Post.

Cuomo family intimates predicted over the weekend that Andrew — who reveled in his father’s praise when he won adoption of a gay-marriage law — will even more aggressively pursue a liberal agenda in his second term.

Such a left-of-center direction was hinted at by Cuomo last week as he railed against “income inequality’’ during two inaugural addresses a short time before his father passed away.

Many close to both Cuomos describe a stormy and at times confrontational relationship between the two strong-willed men.

One of the earliest rifts occurred in the mid-1980s when Andrew Cuomo, attempting to start his own law practice after leaving as a “special adviser’’ in his father’s newly established administration, became involved with developers seeking to do business with the state.

Andrew’s actions, which received high-profile press coverage amid charges of conflict of interest, deeply embarrassed the then-governor, who successfully pressured his son to move his career in another direction. The wound between them took years to heal.

The worst rift occurred nearly a decade later when Andrew, a newly appointed assistant secretary at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, repeatedly warned his father not to seek re-election to a fourth term in 1994.

“Mario Cuomo was a fierce critic, and he was an especially fierce critic of his son,’’ said one of the oldest friends of the Cuomo family.

“That took a toll on Andrew, really shook him up and because of that, ever since then, I think part of his motivation in life has been to impress father,’’ the family friend said.

I've read before this that the Cuomos had a complex relationship, so I'm not surprised by this news.

Just as George W Bush tried working his mommy and daddy issues out on the country, Cuomo seems to be working his daddy issues on the state.

It's a shame these pols just don't go to therapy and work they're stuff out on the couch.

But instead they work it out writ large on the political stage.

Last thing to say here - I have a hard time seeing Andrew "aggressively pursue a liberal agenda in his second term."

If anything, with Mario now gone, Andrew doesn't have to worry that his father will criticize him for being a corporate whore anymore - like he did when Andy tried starting his law practice in the 1980's.

My view is, Andrew Cuomo will push a few high profile "liberal" causes while continuing to pursue his mostly center-right agenda - especially as he gets ready to fulfill his promise to "break" the public school system.

After all, that's where the money is.

A Tale Of Two Cuomos

Mario Cuomo - 1984 Democratic National Convention Keynote Speech:

#NYGov2015 @nysut Mario Cuomo was a great leader "that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems..." @TchrNORPAC
— Gail Richmond (@gailDrich) January 2, 2015

Andrew Cuomo - 2015 Second Inaugural Speech, Buffalo NY:

Albany has been too concerned with protecting the pension rights of teachers and not enough with the future of students. #NYGov2015
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 1, 2015