Twelve months ago, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was admired and seen as a future president. Some Democrats were wishing that Cuomo was the one limbering up for the fight with then-President Donald Trump. Had the Democrats made an error by not skipping a generation to choose Cuomo?

Today, New York’s Democrats are wondering if Cuomo will complete his present term as governor. How can he be eased out of office with minimal embarrassment? Far from wondering if he will be their national standard bearer in 2024, they are wondering if he will be in prison.

In the early days of the pandemic, Cuomo appeared to provide the leadership that Trump did not. He was forceful and outspoken at press conferences. He did not prevaricate on measures to prevent the spread of the virus, or speculate about the internal use of bleach. When the nation needed a leader, Cuomo stepped into the gap left by a befuddled president. Offers for his book about leadership topped $4 million.

But in just a year, that has all fallen apart.

We now know that Cuomo was writing his book as early as June 2020 and his top aide was helping him negotiate the book deal. Should they not have been more focused on the crisis? Staffers employed by the taxpayer seem to have been involved in helping to edit the book.

At the same time, the governor’s office was seeking to suppress a report about deaths in nursing homes. The governor had demanded that nursing homes readmit patients with positive tests for covid-19. Figures revealing a significantly higher death toll from the virus were removed from the conclusion of a Health Department report.

You might think that if nursing home executives exposed their residents to pandemic risk that they could be sued for this, but Cuomo had put in place shield laws to frustrate such lawsuits. These laws followed significant donations to the governor’s 2018 reelection campaign from hospital and nursing home interests.

And an increasing number of female staffers have come forward alleging inappropriate behavior by Cuomo. He has apologized for acting “in a way that made people feel uncomfortable” but continues to deny the more serious allegations of forcible touching. The report from the attorney general’s office was worse than anyone expected, and the Albany district attorney is considering charges. The state Legislature is gearing up to consider impeachment.

Cuomo has hit back. In March, his ally, Larry Schwartz, was given the task of phoning county executives to shore up Cuomo’s support around the state. Schwartz held several positions in Cuomo’s administration, but at the time was serving as “vaccine czar,” leading to concerns that there was a conflict of interest between this role and campaigning for the governor. County executives should not have been left with a concern that failing to support the governor would impact vaccine supplies to their county.

It is not uncommon for increasing numbers of people to come forward once allegations of sexual harassment emerge. That was the whole point of the “MeToo” hashtag: communicating to victims that they are not alone. But did the same forceful style which impressed journalists in Cuomo’s press conferences intimidate staffers into silence? Forceful is good, but it shouldn’t cross a line into vindictive bullying.

Cuomo is now fighting on too many fronts for his reputation to recover. He can’t win on all of them, and any one of these scandals should be enough to end his career. If he completes his term, it will be his last public office.

Quentin Langley is author of "Business and the Culture of Ethics" and a political commentator with Lake Champlain Weekly in New York.

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