The Enigmatic Governor of New York State: Presidential Pretender or a Model Governor for the Nation?
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In San Francisco, in the summer of 1984 at the Democratic National Convention, Mario Cuomo, the governor of New York State delivered an iconic speech, a revival of the progressive spirit of the FDR New Deal years,
A shining city is perhaps all the President [Reagan] sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there’s another city, another part to the shining city—the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages and most young people can’t afford one. Where students can’t afford the education they need and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate. In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can’t find it.
Even worse, there are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city’s streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn’t show. There are ghettoes where thousands of young people without a job, or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers ever day. There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces you don’t see, in the places you don’t visit, in your shining city.
Watch the speech here.
The speech thrust Cuomo pere into the front ranks of contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination; in 1992 he seemed to be on the verge of CONTINUE READING: The Enigmatic Governor of New York State: Presidential Pretender or a Model Governor for the Nation? | Ed In The Apple