Westchester State Senator and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins recently told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that for women who run for office, “you have to really focus on doing your job exceptionally well in order to be able to retain it for yourself. And you also know that you don`t want to be the last, that women fight hard to get in our spaces, and we don`t want to be the last. We want to lay a path for our daughters, our granddaughters and for every other woman who might be inspired by what we do. Most women come in with a mindset that they really have to prove themselves.”
Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul has taken that journey, most recently, “laboring under the dark and ominous shadow of Andrew Cuomo,” according to former NY Congressman Steve Israel. “It’s not that Cuomo eclipsed her, it’s that he often tried to bury her.”
Cuomo made one more TV appearance on Aug 21 regarding tropical storm Henri, and did not include Hochul, who was not included, despite the fact that she will take office on August 24.
Israel knows Kathy Hochul and recently wrote about her, under the headline, Don’t Underestimate Kathy Hochul. “Kathy Hochul has a way of breaking out of relative obscurity on her own terms. Combine that with a tenacious, almost relentless, work ethic and you begin to understand her. I gained that understanding in 2011, when I chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). There’s a backstory that accurately reveals her approach to politics.”
Hochul was the Erie County Clerk when republican congressman Chris Lee, resigned in scandal in 2011. Hochul wanted to run but Israel was reluctant about getting behind her campaign. “Let me prove myself,” she said. And I thought, “why not?” At the very least her candidacy might force the Republicans to spend money defending a safe district, and all we had to do is watch Hochul compete,” writes Israel.
“In the next few weeks, Hochul not only proved herself; she demonstrated all-star talent. She built a competent staff, raised money and hammered tenaciously at the message that Republicans were trying to end Medicare as we knew it. The message worked. She justified DCCC’s investment on the air and ground and won a special election that stunned the political world,” explained Israel.
Hochul served one term in Congress before redistricting made it a red congressional seat, and she lost to a republican by only 2 points. In 2014 Governor Cuomo named Hochul his Lt. Gov., and ” once again, the pundits lapsed into the mistake of underestimating her,” said Israel.
“If she can win what was NY-26, she can win anywhere in the state. But progressives will demand that she forsake pragmatism and show ideological purity, while Trumpian upstate voters will reject her simply for being a Democrat. Meanwhile, the state still recovers from COVID-19, faces an uncertain economy and confronts historic long-term budget challenges that were only temporarily relieved by the infusion of federal COVID assistance.”
“Hochul is up to it. And let’s not lose sight of the almost poetic irony that will put her in the governor’s office. Recently she said of Cuomo, “I think its’s very clear that the governor and I have not been close, physically or otherwise, in terms of much time,” writes Israel, whose column can be found at
www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/do-not-underestimate-kathy-hochul/ar-AANsbOu
