Attacking the Democratic Party’s leadership as he declared his candidacy to run the nation’s largest city, he clearly had a wider audience, and his own ambitions, in mind.
In declaring his candidacy for mayor of New York, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo painted a picture of a city in trouble, besieged by crime, homelessness and menace, above and below ground. For all these problems, he blamed a central culprit: the failed leadership of the Democratic Party, of which he has been a fixture for most of his adult life.
As he assailed the party’s progressive wing for calling for the defunding of police departments, and Democrats generally for failing to curb homelessness, it was clear that Mr. Cuomo had a wider audience in mind than voters in the city’s mayoral primary election in June.
In a 17-minute video posted on Saturday, Mr. Cuomo invoked a long list of Democratic presidents — along with one famous Democrat who never sought the White House himself but offered a forceful defense of liberalism at the height of Reagan Republicanism.
“F.D.R., John Kennedy, L.B.J., Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama taught us what it meant to have a true progressive government: It wasn’t about rhetoric, but results,” Mr. Cuomo said. “They focused on issues that mattered to people in their day-to-day lives, issues that were relevant to them, and then they actually made life better for people. And that is what Democrats must do once again.”
Offering himself up as the latest in a line of long-admired leaders of the party, including his father the three-term governor, is part of Mr. Cuomo’s effort to redeem his own reputation. His standing was battered by accusations of sexual harassment that forced him from office and by questions about his management of New York State during the coronavirus pandemic.
The personal hurdles that Mr. Cuomo faces might prove to be insurmountable: The state attorney general concluded that he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, allegations that he denies. New Yorkers could deny him a second chance.