McCarthy: Cuomo, County Dems Mend Fences

 

By Robert J. McCarthy

Back in 2013 and the days when Erie County Democrats rated nary a blip on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s political radar, an event at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo marked a new low for upstate New York’s largest Democratic organization.

Chairman Jeremy Zellner found himself mixing with the big ballroom commoners for a Cuomo fundraiser, while Democratic “grown-ups” hobnobbed with the governor in an adjoining inner sanctum.

Zellner, like predecessor Len Lenihan, was on the outs.

Maybe it’s something in the Cuomo DNA. The governor’s father – the late Gov. Mario Cuomo – once in the 1980s referred to former Erie County Democratic Chairman Joe Crangle as a “non-person.” Crangle’s alleged offense, which he denied, was criticizing Andrew Cuomo, then an aide to his father.

Lenihan, meanwhile, never gained Andrew Cuomo’s favor after siding with hometown candidate Denise O’Donnell for attorney general in 2006. Cuomo won that effort. Lenihan felt the aftermath, especially after Cuomo became governor in 2011 and his operation desperately – and unsuccessfully – tried to replace him at the Erie County helm. 

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Source: The Buffalo News (via The Empire Report)