H as Mario Cuomo brokered a truce between his son Andrew, who’s running for attorney general, and that office’s current occupant, Eliot Spitzer, front-runner for Mario’s old job as governor? Mario has been “working on” Spitzer for years, says one Dem insider, meeting with him for breakfasts and lunches. The animus between the younger Cuomo and Spitzer dates back to 2000, when Spitzer blamed him for wresting away a PR-friendly national gun initiative and messing up the deal. Spitzer later accused Andrew—before his ’02 run for governor—of leaking stories about their private meetings to the Post. But now Spitzer’s applauding Cuomo’s “guts” in TV ads and calling his former nemesis the “most qualified” A.G. candidate. “That’s what Mario does—he’s the peacemaker,” says former mayor Ed Koch. “When he’s warm, convivial, and charming, there’s no one better.” A source close to Cuomo says it wasn’t really about Mario; Spitzer has no choice but to play nice. “The last thing you want as governor is someone with 300 lawyers and an ax to grind digging around your backyard.”

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: Oct 23, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!