Betrayal

Image by Mark Matcho for Vanity Fair.

Not to rub it in, Working Families, but remember last spring?

With a huge assist from Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo secured the nomination of the tiny but influential Working Families Party on Saturday — but not before the liberal party’s grassroots activists vented their frustration with the incumbent Democrat during a raucous convention.

Cuomo won the nomination after signing off on a more liberal agenda than he had previous embraced and promising to up-end the current leadership of the state Senate, all key priorities of the lefty third party.

That's when small-time WFP supporters like your correspondent began getting the emails and phone messages saying they recognized we weren't all in love with Cuomo, but that they had demonstrated a bunch of major political savvy in pressuring the Democratic governor to promise to campaign for Democratic legislative candidates.

What a difference a Tuesday makes:

By the traditional standards of party loyalty, it was a setback for Mr. Cuomo on Tuesday when Republicans captured the State Senate in convincing fashion, since the party stands in the way of a number of his liberal goals.

But Republicans also have much in common with the governor, who has doggedly and unapologetically sought to curb spending and cut taxes. The continuation of a divided Legislature keeps Mr. Cuomo in a powerful position, allowing him to play deal maker between Republicans and Democrats for another two years.

It's not perhaps the worst thing Cuomo has done lately, but his utter failure to keep that promise on the state Senate is a pretty vivid example of what a treacherous bastard he is. He did not do it. He paid a lot of attention to constructing a "Women's Equality Party" to take away votes from Working Families, but he just didn't have time to support Democratic candidates. He never had any intention of doing it.

Early this morning the WFP’s political director, Bill Lipton, took the highly unusual step of blasting his party’s winning nominee while the confetti was still being swept. “Governor Cuomo promised to take back the State Senate,” Lipton said in a press release. “Instead, he squandered millions on a fake party, and left millions more in his campaign account as New York Democrats in the legislature and in Congress withered on the vine.”

Yes, Bill, that's right. Welcome to psychopath politics.