In an interview with Salon last week, McCall addressed some of Cuomo's personality issues. Cuomo's ability to alienate was almost unparalleled. Cuomo, after all, was a loyal Cabinet secretary during the Clinton administration, yet few of his former colleagues supported his campaign. Why would that be?

"They know him, what can I tell ya?" McCall said.

McCall said he'd spoken with several former Clintonistas and while he begged off from going into the details of the conversations he described them thus: "Having worked with him, they're not very supportive."

Far from being seen as merely "brash" or "arrogant" -- words more refined publications use to describe him -- the regrettable fact for Cuomo was that to a sizable number of voters he seemed like an asshole. And sometimes a politician's problems are truly that simple.

Some of Cuomo's electoral dysfunction is due to both the methodical and historical aspects of McCall's candidacy. Arguably, the nomination has always been McCall's nomination for the asking. While Cuomo spent much of the 1990s in Washington, McCall served the state as a prominent, statewide, Democratic, elected official; plus, if elected, McCall would be the first black governor in state history. But the perceived odious combativeness of Cuomo's persona cannot be understated. It affected his relationship with other Democratic officials, with reporters and ultimately with voters.

One New York Democratic officeholder who asked to not be identified recalls his first encounter with Cuomo. Early in the campaign, Cuomo "had such a reputation -- both negative and positive -- as the guy who would run through fire to get elected," the officeholder said, that people were intrigued by the notion of his candidacy. Even this particular officeholder was intrigued, although he was "75 percent there to be with McCall." So when Cuomo phoned to try to win his endorsement, he took the call.

"I was absolutely offended by how crass he was," the officeholder recounts. "He said, 'The blacks are sticking together so much, we have to be as vocal as they are.' When I heard that from someone trying to claim the Kennedy mantle, someone whose father was so progressive on racial issues, him making that kind of racial appeal, I was taken aback.

"Andrew, before you called, I was concerned you were going to have a 'Mark Green' problem," the officeholder told Cuomo. "Now I'm even more concerned when I hear rhetoric like this." To this, Cuomo said that the day after he won the gubernatorial primary he would bridge the racial divide, appearing with black leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The officeholder decided to endorse McCall.

The Cuomo campaign did not return repeated phone calls for this story, nor would the campaign make Cuomo available for an interview despite several requests.

This kind of attitude has apparently seeped into almost every campaign move Cuomo has made. Other than celebrities like Joe Pantoliano (über-obnoxious Ralph Cifaretto on "The Sopranos") and ex-office holders of Italian descent closely allied with his old man (like former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro), Cuomo has a dearth of endorsements; the New York Times and the New York Post have endorsed McCall.

Perhaps more importantly, some private polls placed Cuomo's "negatives" -- the percentage of voters with an unfavorable opinion of him -- in the low 30s among likely Democratic voters, an astoundingly high number. It hurt him in comparison with the "nice-guy" perceptions of both McCall and the man both he and McCall hoped to defeat this November, George Pataki. Since there are few actual policy debates to be had in this primary, much centers on personality.

"In a primary, a lot has to do with style and image because there aren't a lot of substantive differences," one New York Democratic operative says. "And Andrew fails those tests."

But it's not just a question of style. According to former Clinton administration officials, Cuomo as both undersecretary and then secretary of housing and urban development was difficult to work with and had a management style of questionable effectiveness. Morale at HUD during those years was low, many say.

On the campaign trail, Cuomo tried to portray himself as "an aggressive progressive," contrasting his brash ways with McCall's more subdued temperament. There may be something to this; in its Sunday endorsement of McCall, the New York Times editorial page ceded that "a candidate with Mr. Cuomo's spirit and Mr. McCall's experience and gravitas would be hard to beat." But since such an amalgam was unavailable, the Times chose McCall with little apparent hesitation.

Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, says that Cuomo gets a bad rap. "I've known him since he was teenager in Queens fixing cars to make extra money in his family's driveway," he says. "He gets knocked for being an aggressive politician, but most politicians are aggressive. Maybe he's a little more overtly aggressive."

There is indeed much about Cuomo to like. In 1986, at the age of 28, he started an effective charity for homeless families, Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged, or HELP. As a HUD secretary he was passionate, fearless and energetic. For those looking for brave liberals, Cuomo as HUD secretary bravely took on the Klan and the gun lobby; for those looking for someone who would take on entrenched liberal bureaucracies, Cuomo did attempt to reform public housing and achieved some successes. He is bright and interesting.

And, to an extent, the rap on Cuomo as a "negative campaigner" is unfair. McCall has also been critical of Cuomo's record, as Cuomo has been of McCall's. Both records are of course fair game. Only recently has McCall refrained from doing so, as his polls shot up and he seemed to be pursuing a strategy of running out the clock.

Their differing styles were apparent during last Wednesday morning's debate on "The Brian Lehrer Show" on WNYC-FM, the local National Public Radio station. McCall, 66, sauntered in, arriving a touch early. Waiting for the debate to begin, he leaned his head on his hand wearily. He seemed mellow -- a rumpled cool, even, if perhaps a bit sleepy.

When McCall speaks, he seems far more like the Citicorp vice president he was for eight years or the former president of the New York City Board of Education than the somewhat militant columnist for the Amsterdam News he was in the 1970s, where he once even bashed Santa Claus as "no friend of the ghetto child." The Carl McCall of 2002 generally seems more cautious than the average black politician, which Cuomo has tried to underline. In a campaign appearance with Cuomo, fiery African-American studies professor Cornel West called McCall "a timid and hesitant man."

This is not quite fair. McCall has taken both Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Pataki to court. (Giuliani was trying to keep McCall from auditing several city agencies to gauge their effectiveness; Pataki was proposing a budget that would have used $230 million from the New York State and Local Retirement System.) Regardless, McCall's methodical and cautious nature can be seen as a plus by some. He has proven effective in his supervision of the state's $112 billion stock portfolio. Moreover, his personal story -- his rise from the slums of Boston to prestigious Dartmouth College to the corridors of power -- is a bit more compelling than that of Cuomo, who is something of a Queens version of George W. Bush, plus a few I.Q. points and minus a great deal of bonhomie.

McCall just generally seems more pleasant; Cuomo kind of seems like a dick. And it is perhaps for that reason that campaign blunders that would take another candidate out -- the discovery that McCall had not, despite his claims, been raised in public housing (though certainly his childhood was fairly squalid); the revelation that McCall's running mate had fathered several children outside his first marriage; the slam by supporter Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., that Cuomo's wife wouldn't be a factor in the election since "No one knows who she is" -- have quickly dissolved and disappeared.

At 10 a.m. on the dot, Cuomo appeared at the end of the WNYC's hall, and he brusquely bee-lined for the studio like a jungle cat. The debate began and it didn't take long for Cuomo to kick in with one of his criticism staples, slamming McCall for having "certified" the state budget -- in essence, for not staging a protest against Pataki's budget priorities by withholding paychecks for the Legislature. His nature is the attack, the rat-a-tat-tat, the game of it all. You could tell he loves combative politics, loves drawing blood.

"Why didn't you say, 'I'm not signing! It's a sham budget! I'm gonna be the guy who stops the dance!'?" he asked McCall. The implication was that McCall should have created a standoff not unlike the Clinton vs. Gingrich government shutdown, refusing to carry out his comptroller's duties and verify that the appropriations bills are sufficient to cover the state's expenses.

"This is the difference in the campaign," Cuomo said, "the issue is who will actually get something done? Past is prologue. Someone has to stand up and say 'Stop!'"

And since this was a debate with a Latino focus, cosponsored by El Diaro, Cuomo added, with all the subtlety and ilan of his friend Al Gore, "No mas palabras solamente obras -- no more words."

McCall brushed this aside. "He's just trying to be petty and critical," he told Salon about Cuomo's budget attack. "I don't think he understands the process." McCall said if he had done what Cuomo suggested he should have done he would have been "grandstanding -- it would be doing something that would get me a lot of attention, but it wouldn't enhance the process."

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