Cynthia Nixon, the actress best known for her role as Miranda in Sex and the City, is reportedly seriously mulling a run for New York governor, a move that, according to Politico, caught current Governor Andrew Cuomo by surprise. Nixon has also been in conversations with two of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s former top advisers, adding fuel to the idea that she might enter the ring. Ha ha! No big deal! Cuomo is really not mad about this.
In a conference call on Wednesday morning, reporters asked Cuomo whether he thought de Blasio had a hand in Nixon’s potential run. “I think it was probably either the Mayor of New York or Vladimir Putin,” Cuomo said. “I’m going to leave it to you great investigative reporters to follow the facts and ferret out the truth.”
Cuomo then added: “Russian interference? Hahahaha.” The laugh was the notable cackle of someone who is keeping his cool. (A spokesperson for Cuomo said the governor was joking about the whole thing.)
Later in the call, Cuomo also said about Nixon, “Normally, name recognition is relevant when it has some connection to the endeavor. But if it’s just about name recognition, I’m hoping that Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Billy Joel don’t get into the race. If it’s just about name recognition, that would really be a problem.”
In a separate appearance later on NY1, Cuomo took shots at de Blasio’s bona fides as a progressive, saying, “It’s about results.”
Cuomo is widely believed to have had a hand in propping up the New York Republican Party through the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of eight breakaway Senate Democrats who caucus with Republicans, effectively giving them the majority in New York. Now those are results!
Cuomo was then played off the air:
It seems unlikely that Nixon would actually be able to beat Cuomo, especially given the fact that her celebrity name recognition probably won’t extend statewide. But even the whiff of a potential challenge from the left seems to have gotten under the governor’s skin.