Some nice writing: The pressure on Cuomo to make more of a commitment to this year’s public campaign finance debate will hit a peak on Thursday when Massachusetts senator and national liberal darling Elizabeth Warren comes to New York for an event entitled “Taking on Big Money’s Power Over the Economy.” Sources familiar with Warren’s plans say she will focus her remarks on the need to get the big money out of national politics to bridge the income inequality divide. She will studiously abstain from criticizing Cuomo or dipping her toe into the state-level campaign finance debate. That task will fall to another poster boy for the liberal left, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose cool relationship with Cuomo turned downright icy last week when news broke of their power struggle over $613 million in settlement cash Schneiderman wrested from JP Morgan Chase. And how’s this for irony: Just as Warren and Schneiderman are making their respective campaign finance reform pitches, Cuomo will be across the country in Los Angeles, at a high-dollar fund-raiser hosted in his honor by entertainment bigwigs like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Brad Grey and Steven Spielberg. The cost to attend starts at $5,000 a person and goes as high as $50,000 per couple. Even as he has spoken about the need to reform the state’s byzantine election laws and establish a publicly financed campaign system, Cuomo has continued to exploit the existing limits and loopholes to amass a massive campaign war chest. Last week, he announced he has raised an eye-popping $33.3 million—more than any other governor across the nation seeking re-election this year. He got testy when asked about his fund-raising during a radio interview, calling questions about how put up such big numbers “baloney.”
Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 18:34:58 +0000
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