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Cuomo Throws Shade All Over De Blasio's Summer Vacation
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Aug 23, 2016
Modified Aug 23, 2016
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Aug 23, 2016
Modified Aug 23, 2016
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Mayor de Blasio is on vacation again, which is good for the groundhogs that have been slowly trying to take over City Hall, but not so good for his public image. "De Blasio would rather be on vacation than deal with New York!" one Post headline screams. "Don’t Give the Mayor a Break!" says another, from NY1. But Governor Cuomo says it's totally cool for de Blasio to take a little rest anytime the job's too much for him—not that he'd ever need a vacation, because breaks are for the weak.
Cuomo was asked about de Blasio's current weeklong vacation—his second this summer—at a press conference on Long Island."I don’t comment on anyone’s vacation schedule," he said, before going on to point out how much better he is at working than de Blasio. "For me, I am not comfortable leaving the state. If I leave the state and something happens, I like to be hands-on."
De Blasio's been getting flack for this trip, in which he and his family will travel to Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In July, they went to Italy for a week, and the mayor spent a few days in Seattle to visit his brother. The de Blasios have also visited their son Dante at Yale, and went to daughter Chiara's graduation in California this summer, though neither of these events should count as vacation (but do to most employers!). It's not not a lot of travel time in a short period of time, and the Post isn't having it, especially since he's been lax about holding public events. The next mayoral election is, after all, only about a year away.
“His poll numbers have taken a bunch of hits, he’s lost ground, and this is a time when you can start to make it up,” Bill Cunningham, formerly a communications director for Mayor Bloomberg, told the tabloid. "The summer is when he controls media in the sense that he controls his public appearances, where he goes, what he says. He has a stage that he can paint the picture the way he wants. So every day he takes away from the canvas is a lost day."
NY1, meanwhile, suggests de Blasio get a vacation home at, say, Brighton Beach or City Island, so it'll be more convenient for him to show up an hour late to an important press conference or emergency event. "I suggested during the Bloomberg administration - and I’m re-suggesting now - that a vacation-craving mayor should establish a summer Gracie Mansion somewhere else in the city," columnist Bob Hardt wrote. "When they served as mayor, both William O’Dwyer and Abe Beame had homes in the Rockaways and even had separate inaugurations there."
Anyway, Cuomo says we're stuck with him, no matter how many jaunts de Blasio takes. "I don't care what it is. If it's a problem with the MTA, god forbid, a train derailment, a hurricane, a flood, I like to be there. I think that’s my job. I got that ethic, frankly from my father, who was governor for 12 years. His point to me as a young fellow was, 'to do the job you have to be there.' You wanna be the governor of New York? Be in New York. I can count on one hand in 12 years how many days my father left the state," he said.
Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, famously never took a vacation, except for all those weekends and snowstorms in which he flew off to Bermuda in his private jet.
Tagged
bill de blasio
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Rebecca Fishbein
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