Maybe you caught the news this morning that, in a surprise announcement, Andrew Cuomo declared his intention of running for governor of New York. Cuomo, until ten days ago, was of course our HUD Secretary, and you probably know that his dear ol' dad Mario used to be governor here.
What surprised me was that this was a surprise announcement. What else is the son of a former governor going to do when his Cabinet appointment ends—particularly one whose family connections stretch back so far in national politics on both sides?
In all fairness, I had some, er, insider information. My friend Jonathan worked until recently for Kerry Kennedy Cuomo's human rights organization Speak Truth to Power. Kerry is Andrew's wife, and she's also RFK's daughter. Jonathan invited █████ and me to a private signing of the coffee-table book Speak Truth to Power in December, which was held at Kenneth Cole's flagship store at Rockefeller Center. Kenneth is married to Andrew's sister, and all the above-mentioned folks were in attendance at the little shindig, plus RFK Jr., who looks far more like his father than JFK Jr. looked like his.
Anyway, Jonathan told me that Andrew would be running for governor, and that he has his eye on the Presidency eventually. (Maybe he and Hillary will duke it out for the Democratic nomination in 2008—which would be an even stranger scenario than the one I sketched out for my story "From Our Point of View We Had Moved to the Left," which appeared F&SF in 1993 and concerned the Presidential Inauguration of 2009.) Andrew's intent seemed so inevitable that I guess I couldn't believe anyone would find his announcement a surprise.
You can rest assured, though, that I won't be announcing my candidacy for president of the teachers' union in Davis County, Utah, any time soon. I hope that doesn't come as a surprise.
