Hey Andrew, Focus On Your Day Job

Earlier this week, America Rising noted that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s lack of job creation for Upstate New York would be a tremendous impediment to his 2020 dreams. Since then two more pieces have been published that are sharply critical of Cuomo’s failed jobs record.

In the Albany Times-Union, Chris Churchill documents that Upstate New York’s population is shrinking, a potentially fatal sign for Cuomo’s White House dreams:

“No governor of a state with a shrinking population has ever been elected president. That’s something Gov. Andrew Cuomo might want to consider as he plans his run for president. Why would the country want to be more like New York when so many New Yorkers are fleeing to other parts of the country?”

The main factor accounting for the population decline is that Cuomo has done little to better the economic situation:

“In fact, the Investigative Post says only three states had slower rates of growth than upstate New York. Even Mississippi performed better. Mississippi! That’s why the idea of a Cuomo presidential candidacy is so laughable. There’s not enough lipstick in the world to hide the ugliness of his economic record. Competitors will beat him over the head with those job numbers. The attack ads will be devastating.”

While the Albany Times-Union focused on the population decline, a recent New York Post editorial highlighted that even the steps taken by the Cuomo administration to boost upstate New York’s economic growth have been “spectacular failures”:

“The series, by Investigative Post, ProPublica and the Columbia School of Journalism, notes that since 2010 Cuomo by his own reckoning has dropped a whopping $25 billion to restart the upstate economy — but with pathetically little to show for it. While jobs have grown 11 percent nationally since 2010, and 13 percent in all New York, Upstate jobs grew just 2.7 percent, worse than in all but three states.”

Governor Cuomo might be staffing up for a 2020 presidential run already, but if he wants to be re-elected in 2018, he should focus on his day job.