You can criticize Andrew Cuomo for many things. Carpet bags are not one of them.
In the course of his long political career, Cuomo was accused, persistent, a bully, a female hero and a narcissist.
The list is longer.
But here is a label that you cannot hang on the neck of the former governor – that he is not a real New Yorker.
“If you are a governor, you are still a New Yorker. New York City is in the state of New York and I was obviously very, very, very very involved in New York City, ”said Cuomo, who runs for the mayor, after a recent campaign rally in Manhattan.
“So I'm a New York 100% through and through.”
When Cuomo was a governor and he was criticized that he called the right to life, pro-assault weapon, anti-homosexual-conservative, did you identify him with Peekskill, Uniondale or New York City?
However, other candidates in the mayor's breed try to show Cuomo, a native queens, as a suburbanite outside the low that does not know the difference between Washington Square and Washington Heights.
Last week, the carpet plants picked up steam in the reports that Cuomo, who jumped into the mayor's race on March 1, had only moved into the city in Albany and West Chest in September after decades.
“Andrew Cuomo was not here yet, didn't think of us,” said former city administrator Scott Stringer, one of the many candidates for the mayor.
“He doesn't get us, he doesn't understand us, he doesn't think of us like people who live here every day. He is back in the city and that's okay. But I have to tell you that this idea that he is a New York person goes out of the window with reporting on today's stories. “
Cuomo said he rented an apartment in Midtown Manhattan for a few years, but has only lived there full -time since last autumn.
The current city administrator Brad Lander, another candidate, criticized Cuomo about the rent he supposedly paid.
“Most New Yorkers cannot afford the average unit of $ 3,500 per month. I don't know anyone who can afford to pay $ 8,800 a month, ”said Lander. “This is not the residential struggle that the New York is faced.”
Cuomo had previously been registered to coordinate in the West Chestian house of his sister Maria and her husband, fashion designer Kenneth Cole. Previously, Cuomo, a democrat, was registered to vote in the executive villa in Albany, in which New York governors and their families have been living since 1875.
Now Cuomo Gracie Mansion, the residence of the Upper East Side of the Mayor of New York City, has its sights.
It is a smaller residence, and frankly the job too.
But try everyone who has ever been the mayor of New York City, including the incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who fights a tough fight against his own scandal in the town hall.
To his honor, Adams did not compete with the choir of candidates who accused Cuomo of carpet sagging.
Adams faced his own Residency questions when he ran for the mayor for the first time in 2021 because he lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey, instead of an apartment in Brooklyn.
Last week he made a Residency Reference when he fell with a Member of the Congress by Nassau County, the democrat Laura Gillen, who told him that she “had no confidence” into his ability to lead the city.
The occasion was a hearing in the congress in Washington, DC in sanctuary cities.
“Mayor of Adam, what you said today, gave me no confidence in your ability to continue to serve and lead our city,” said Gillen.
“Our City ”, emphasized Gillen.
“But you don't live in New York City. You live on Long Island. They are not voted for the mayor, ”said Adams. “Thank God you don't live in New York City.”
Only a real New Yorker could do it back.