Andrew M. Cuomo - All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life

To my family, whose love saved me.

To my friends, whose hard work and commitment rebuilt the state... and me too.

And to New Yorkers, who are a loving, giving, courageous, inviting community.

T his book traces my rapid rise from a political neophyte to a thirty-nine-year-old member of President Clintons cabinet, my painful fall into political oblivion and personal turmoil, and the rebound that led me to become governor of New York. Rather than a traditional autobiography, this memoir is a series of stories that have defined my public and private lives. It ranges from my teenage years, when I watched my father battle for families in Queens, to the sudden unraveling of my world in my midforties to my memorable achievements as governor of New York, such as the historic passage, against long odds, of marriage equality and gun safety for all New Yorkers.

I have spent many years studying, practicing, failing, and succeeding, with profound highs and humiliating lows, with moments of joy in what I helped to accomplish, and others in which I paid a high price for my hubris. It is my aim that these candidly told storiessome of which were exhilarating to retell, others discomfortingmay illuminate the hard-won insights Ive accumulated: how failure is inextricably bound up with success, how our strengths can become our weaknesses, the necessity of being both relentless and unyielding in pursuing our dreams.

Equally, I hope that this book will offer a renewed sense of possibility for our nations politics, shedding some light on how we can break through the gridlock, dysfunction, and distrust. Americans are tired of good intentions, hardened positions, and lofty rhetoric; they want results. Ive tried to pull back the curtain on what I think it takes to wage and win the good fight, to be both bold and pragmatic, using the most effective strategies Ive relied on to turn paralysis into progress and to forge a politics of common purpose.

Finally, as you will discover in these pages, it is from these sometimes stirring successes and always searing setbacks that I have come to believe that all things are possible if we, each of us and together as a country, are willing to challenge and change the status quo, in our own lives, in our businesses, and in our politics.

D uring the nineteen months Id been running for governor, I made hundreds of speeches at hundreds of venues. From Albany to Tonawanda, Alexandria Bay to Yonkers, every event began the same way. I walked in. Cameras flashed. I greeted the cheering crowd as I crossed the stage to a red-white-and-blue-draped rostrum with an ANDREW CUOMO FOR GOVERNOR poster covering the front. Supporters chanted, Andrew! Andrew! Andrew! Andrew! Someoneusually my running mate, Charlie Kingintroduced me. Thank you, I said, smiling broadly. Thank you, thank you.

Today, I walked across the stage in the New York Hilton Midtown ballroom. Bill Clinton and New York congressman Charles Rangel stood beside me. Greeting the audience felt as familiar as being home. But what comes now, I thought, is the literal beginning of the end. My family and friends were there, but not to celebrate with me. They were there to comfort me. It was a political wake. The media had come to record my public demise. The applause for a job half-completed sounded like the ersatz enthusiasm parents gin up for their childs last-ranked team as its players are awarded medals for participation. I was dropping out of the primary race a week before the votes would be cast. I had failed.

Until now, Id been on the upswing. I ran my first political campaign at age twenty-four and founded the nations largest nonprofit organization to help the homeless before I turned thirty. Then I became assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Developmentan appointment that scaled up my model for addressing homelessness to the national level. At age thirty-nine, I was one of the youngest cabinet members in U.S. history, appointed by Bill Clinton.

Being secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development was a hands-on joband highly visible. I traveled with the president on Air Force One as he led an effort, during a time of prosperity, to put poverty back on the front burnerto shine a light on places left behind in the new economy. I also set out to help save an agency Republicans had written off, and, at times, had tried to abolish. As a cabinet secretary, I represented the United States on trips to South Africa, China, and Mexico. I met with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to talk about creating economic and community development programs to advance the peace process.

My wife, Kerry, and I joined the first family for movie nights in the White House theater and occasionally spent a weekend with the president and first lady at Camp David. On the much more formal side of life in Washington, D.C., we were the Clintons invited guests at a number of private and state dinners.

I was also close to Vice President Al Gore. I shared his vision of making government leaner and more efficient. I was mentioned as one of the possible running mates for the 2000 presidential election.

My career ascended like a dot-com stock in the early years of the Internet bubble.

It crashed just as hard. Now, at forty-four, I was standing before fifty friends, family members, and supportersand the mediadefeated and exhausted.

I knew going into the gubernatorial race that politics was a tough game. Id learned that basic truth not during bad times but during one of the bestin 1982 when my father was sworn in as the fifty-second governor of the State of New York.

We arrived at the Executive Mansion in Albany, thrilled and a little overwhelmed. The four-story mansion, then 125 years old, whose architectural style The New Yorker once described as Hudson River Helter-Skelter, was considerably grander than our family home in Queens. The staff lined up to welcome us. I stood in the wide front hall. Looking up, I saw the outgoing governor, Hugh Carey, coming down the stairs. He was carrying two awkwardly large cardboard boxes. His steps were uncertain. He was leaning to the side, trying to see around the boxes so he wouldnt trip. I didnt know what to do. Two state workers were walking up the staircase. Oh, good, I thought. Theyre going to help him.

They walked right past him.

I thought to myself, Boy, when its over, its over, and never allowed myself to forget that lesson.

Thats how I felt now, standing behind the poster from my now defunct campaign, in front of people who had put their faithand often their moneyinto my race. I was achingly aware of the similarities between my fathers first campaign, in 1982, and this one of mine, twenty years later. We both fought the Democratic Party machine. We both ran against the political bosses favored candidate. We both believed that we were the best person to lead the State of New York.

But the differences were painful. My father had won his Democratic primary and bested his Republican opponent in the general election.

I, on the other hand, had failed in trying to persuade New Yorkers that I, and not my opponent, Carl McCall, should carry the Democratic banner in the November 2002 election. Instead, Id come to be viewed as an arrogant upstart whose campaign lurched from week to week with no clear purpose.

McCall had won. The states longtime comptroller, he was New Yorks senior Democrat, the first African American candidate for governor, a beloved statesman. As the Democratic Partys designee, he would now face New Yorks sitting governor, a Republican, George Pataki, the same man who, in 1994, had beaten my father out of a fourth term.