Even with his willingness to make public employees pay more for their benefits and echo many of things Gov. Christie and Gov. Walker have been saying? Oh and it isn't like Cuomo is for a "balanced approach" he thinks New York is overtaxed as well so he wont offset public employee benefit cuts with any tax increases.
I've got to assume that when the chips are down its the social issues that win out for most progressives. Alright, I'm intrigued.
Cuomo does make me uncomfortable on economic issues (which I do care about a lot), but he's sufficiently technocratic as opposed to an ideological neoliberal that I'd support him over Schumer. My discomfort with a lot of his actions on economic and labour policy is exactly why I prefer Gillibrand over him.
Social liberal and economic leftist with a good personality>Social liberal and economic centrist/technocrat/pragmatist with a good personality>Social liberal-but-also-kind-of-police-statist and economic leftist with a terrible personality.
Since Christie is more technocratic than an ideologue and has taken similar actions on the economic front as Cuomo, does that mean he doesn't bother you that much?
Christie's actions have gone a few steps further in some areas and he seems a lot less interested in negotiation or explaining his actions to people who don't already agree with him. That said, yes, he's still much less offensive to my sensibilities than someone like Walker or Kasich.
Christie has held about 40 townhall events in his state in the last 2 years, plus a bunch of events that were generally considered an hostile environment.
Have you heard about his speech to the firefighters where they almost booed him off stage when he arrived, but gave him a standing ovation when he finished. His support increase in New Jersey lately isn't just from marginally Dem voters. Its from those very people that now believe him when he tells them,
"I understand your angry, I understand your upset, and I understand you have been cheated, but I don't get why you are angry at the first guy that got up in front of you to tell you the truth. The truth is that governor after governor got in front of you and promised you more benefits and better benefits when they knew they couldn't be paid for. And the truth is that if we didn't act those very pensions and benefits you count on today would no longer exist like they do today in 10 years from now. The fact is that they are 120 billion dollars under funded. Now I could have gotten up here in front of you and told you everything is going to be fine. There's no problem with those pensions and I'm sure my reelection would be a lot easier. But I couldn't look at myself in the mirror, knowing that when I had the chance to save those very benefits that your counting on that I decided to take the easy way out. That I would just duck and kick the can down the road for the next administration. But then one of you would come up to me and ask me, "Why when you had a chance to do something, you didn't." And I wouldn't an answer for them. So me and the Dem speaker in the house and the Dem majority leader in the senate decided to take action to make sure that these benefits that you count on will not cease to exist. And if that means I don't win reelection, so be it."
--Standing Ovation from a group of Public Employees(who were booing him only 15 minutes earlier)
If that isn't explaining your actions to people that don't already agree with you, then I don't what is.
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