The Guardian reports:

It’s rare for a single US state governor to get so much attention it even rivals the president during a historical national crisis – but that’s exactly what New York’s Andrew Cuomo is experiencing.

Cuomo, the technocratic three-term governor who’s had to deal with the state hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, has emerged as the most prominent Democrat in charge of fighting the virus, filling a role many felt former vice-president Joe Biden should be occupying.

But while Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee set to fight Trump for the White House in November, has been holed up in his basement streaming online briefings, it is Cuomo who has loomed far larger in America’s fight against Covid-19. Cuomo’s televised daily press conferences – calm, measured and honest – have emerged as the rival to Trump’s chaotic and misleading evening broadcasts.

Though Cuomo has vociferously denied harboring presidential ambitions, it is telling that speculation about a future Cuomo run for the White House is now one of the hottest topics in US politics – a remarkable turnaround for a politician widely disliked by America’s resurgent left wing.

But the age of the coronavirus has upset conventional politics around the globe and there is no doubt Cuomo has seized his moment.

“I’ve been very very impressed by the way in which he’s approached it,” the former Washington governor Gary Locke, an ex-chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said. “Very frank, very honest – upfront. Preparing the people, presenting facts so that the public is not caught off guard, they know what to expect. He’s very even-keeled and I think the public appreciates that. He’s not trying to gloss over things, the magnitude, the severity of the pandemic.” [Continue reading…]