22 February 2021: Andrew Cuomo's PR Blunders

Cuomo's Crisis Lessons in Failed Leadership

This is an interesting take on Governor Cuomo's nursing home scandals, from the perspective of public relations and marketing industry expert Fraser Seitel:

The New Yorker's dizzying fall from grace—from first to worst among U.S. governors—provides a cautionary tale not only for public figures, but also for those who advise them.

The reason, in a word, for the once-respected Governor's rapid decline in esteem, trust and credibility is "hubris," i.e., excessive pride, conceit or arrogance.

And Gov. Cuomo's unbridled hubris—demonstrated over nine months of preening, preaching and self-promoting followed by three months of back-pedaling, blaming and alibiing—has landed the erstwhile Democrat darling squarely in the middle of an untenable, unwinnable and, for Andrew Cuomo himself, "unimaginable," public relations disaster.

Seitel goes on to cite the Governor Cuomo for violating the following PR rules: 1. Taking full credit. 2. Believing his own publicity. 3. Feigning empathy. 4. Accepting no blame.

Call us crazy, but we would also add knowingly implementing policies that would lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of additional COVID deaths and trying to cover them up to the list of PR rules the Cuomo administration violated.