Mario Cuomo, the former three-term governor of New York and onetime presidential hopeful, has died, according to the New York Daily News. He was 82.
Current New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mr. Cuomo’s eldest son, was sworn in for his second term only hours before the news was announced.
“He couldn’t be here physically today … but my father is in this room,” Andrew Cuomo said upon his inauguration, the Daily News reported.
During his time in Albany, Mario Cuomo, a Democrat, battled recessions and blocked the state’s restoring of the death penalty. Mr. Cuomo was the keynote speaker at the DNC’s 1984 convention in San Francisco, which saw the ascension of Walter Mondale to run against incumbent Ronald Reagan. According to the Daily News, Mr. Cuomo rebutted Regan’s “shining city on a hill” by saying that America was “more a ’Tale of Two Cities.’”
In addition to flirting with White House runs in 1988 and 1992, Mr. Cuomo also famously removed his name from President Clinton’s short list of potential replacements for Supreme Court Justin Byron White. Fellow New Yorker Ruth Bader Ginsburg was chosen instead.
Chris Cuomo, an anchor at CNN, is another of the elder Cuomo’s sons.
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• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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