Former NY mayor Mario Cuomo dies

Mario Cuomo, the son of Italian immigrants who became an eloquent spokesman for a generation of liberal Democrats during his three terms as governor of New York — but could not quite bring himself to run for president — has died.

Cuomo, 82, died at his home of natural causes from heart failure, the same day his son Andrew started his second term as state governor.

He loomed large in New York politics as governor from 1983-94 and became nationally celebrated for his ability to weave the story of his humble upbringing with ringing calls for social justice.

However, Cuomo was also known for the presidential races he stayed out of in 1988 and 1992, agonising publicly over whether to run for the White House that he was dubbed ‘Hamlet on the Hudson’.

In 1991, Cuomo left a plane idling on the tarmac at Albany airport at the last minuterather than fly to New Hampshire and jump into the battle for the presidential nomination, leaving the door open for a lesser-known governor, Bill Clinton.

Cuomo’s last public appearance came in November, when Andrew was re-elected governor of New York and the frail-looking patriarch and his son raised their arms together in victory at the election-night celebration. He did not attend Andrew Cuomo’s speech on Thursday as he was not well, but the current governor spoke of his father.

“He is in the heart and mind of every person who is here. He is here and he is here, and his inspiration and his legacy and his experience is what has brought this state to this point,” Andrew Cuomo said. “So let’s give him a round of applause.”

Cuomo’s big break came in 1982 when, as New York’s lieutenant governor, he won the Democratic nomination for governor in an upset over New York mayor Ed Koch and went on to beat conservative millionaire Republican Lewis Lehrman.

His reputation for eloquence was secured at the 1984 Democratic National Convention when he delivered his ‘Tale of Two Cities’ keynote address, in which he told of the lessons he learned as the son of a grocer in New York City.

The electrified delegates in San Francisco cheered “Mario! Mario! Mario!” and some wondered whether they had chosen the wrong presidential candidate in Walter Mondale.

While Mondale’s candidacy stumbled, Cuomo took his oratorical skill to Notre Dame University where, as the nation’s most famous Catholic supporter of abortion rights, he argued that the Church should not expect him to press for outlawing terminations, given that many Catholics themselves were having them.

US president Barack Obama said Cuomo was “a determined champion of progressive values and an unflinching voice for tolerance, inclusiveness, fairness, dignity, and opportunity”.

“His own story taught him that as Americans, we are bound together as one people, and our country’s success rests on the success of all of us, not just a fortunate few,” he said.