29 July 2021: What is Cuomo's Political Defense Strategy?

Political analysts explain Cuomo's political defense strategy amid sex harassment scandal

What's behind Team Cuomo's strategy of accusing all federal and state officials seriously investigating the scandals in which he has been implicated of seeking to run for NY governor?

This report gets into why Cuomo is doing what he is doing to gin up support among his political base:

Governor Cuomo has found himself in the political hotseat, fighting to keep his job amidst an attorney general investigation, a federal probe and an impeachment probe. But like in any big game where the stakes are high, Cuomo has found a strategy to beat down the criticism.

Christopher Mann is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Skidmore College.

“In some ways what he said is ‘Scandal Defense 101’ -- cast doubt on the investigators, cast doubt on what was said,” Mann said.

Mann says the new defense play from Cuomo was seen clearly here in a recent news conference where Cuomo cast doubt on both investigators and reporters asking questions.

According to Mann, the strategy is working:

While the survival strategy may seem clear to political insiders, Mann says to the general public this strategy is actually working to protect Cuomo.

“It’s not a very different bag of tricks than we’ve seen from President Trump or other politicians from both parties when they get in trouble in terms of attacking the messenger,” Mann said.

Bill Hammond of the Albany government watchdog group, the Empire Center for Public Policy explains how the strategy works.

“By accusing the accusers of being biased, it's sort of like working the refs in a basketball game. You are putting them on the defensive and you are distracting from the charges against you,” Hammond said.

Andrew M. Cuomo doesn't have much else at this point, does he?