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Albany Times Union

No Lock on Party Nod For AG

By Fred LeBrun

The legions of Democratic convention delegates meeting in Buffalo next week are likely to acclaim with one voice "Hail Spitzer" for governor. But the matter of who will run to succeed him as state attorney general is by no means decided.

And over this, there is a babble of opinion.

The seemingly preferred candidate to emerge from a field of five is Andrew Cuomo, who over the last couple of years has methodically tilled the political vineyards of county chairs and key unions. He has a commanding lead in the eyes of those running the state's Democratic political machinery. He has scads of money. One could argue he has played by the rules and has earned the nomination.

But is that enough for the voters?

The words of Colonie Democratic Chairman Phil Steck back in March reverberate all the way to Buffalo, and are as applicable today as then. And they will no doubt serve as the start of more than one heated discussion in Buffalo.

"What I see at the grass-roots level is there's not a lot enthusiasm for Andrew Cuomo."

It's the name, maybe, which, depending on who you talk to, carries with it as strong a minus as a plus. Perhaps it's Andrew Cuomo's behavior four years ago as the candidate who took away state Comptroller H. Carl McCall's chances of unseating Gov. George Pataki. That perception -- that Cuomo sabotaged McCall, an African-American, by staying in the primary race until the 11th hour -- is still strong out there at some levels of the party machinery and among many minority voters. Then there was the personal stuff that ended in Cuomo's divorce, played out in the tabloids.

Then again, maybe the grass roots love Andrew. We'll see in September during the inevitable primary.

For now, the negative sum of doubts remains as vague as a bad odor drifting out of a landfill. Vague, perhaps, but real enough to make you shut the window and move somewhere else. No doubt all of this is infuriating to Cuomo and his team, who have proceeded with a systematic patience toward the nomination that would do Jimmy Carter proud. But at least the consequences of these doubts make for an interesting convention, and post-convention, for the rest of us.

For now, some delegates will probably be lured to the alternatives. Cuomo's nearest competitor in terms of fundraising and popularity, according to a recent Siena College poll, would be perennial candidate Mark Green of New York City. Green is virtually unknown upstate.

The next in line, now that Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has dropped out of the race for personal reasons, is political neophyte Denise O'Donnell of Buffalo.

She is the only woman among the Democrats, the only one -- according to her -- who has ever tried a felony, the only upstater. A former U.S. attorney. She brings no baggage to the table, only the freshness of someone new to the process.

But she also suffers from a lack of name recognition, and her war chest is a large ceramic pig with slot on the top.

"What we will be hoping to do, with cautious optimism, is just get on the ballot at the convention," O'Donnell said Thursday. To do that, she needs to draw 25 percent of the delegates.

If that's too much of a lift, she says she is committed to getting the 15,000 signatures needed instead to be on the ballot for a September primary that will probably also include Green and who knows who else. It's the Democrats.

And always exciting.