Lupica: Mario Cuomo's voice was the good in him - New York Daily News

LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS We came out of a side door of the Sheraton on 52nd St. in the middle of the afternoon, Mario Cuomo deciding to walk to Madison Square Garden to rehearse the rousing speech he would give later placing Bill Clinton's name in nomination for President, which is what Cuomo should have been, twice.

We came out of a side door of the Sheraton on 52nd St. in the middle of the afternoon, Mario Cuomo deciding to walk to Madison Square Garden to rehearse the rousing speech he would give later placing Bill Clinton's name in nomination for President, which is what Cuomo should have been, twice.

So he would give a speech somebody should have been giving for him on this night, in one of the great halls of Cuomo's own city. It was July of 1992 and Cuomo hadn't run for President in 1988, as we thought he would and hoped he would, four years after he had given one of the best convention speeches anyone ever gave in this country, his keynote address in San Francisco.

That was when he had first reached out to the rest of the country with his eloquence and humanity and genius for common sense, reached out as well that night with what his dear friend Jimmy Breslin wrote were old ballplayer's hands.

Torrie, Keith So he would give a speech somebody should have been giving for him on this night, in one of the great halls of Cuomo's own city.

Cuomo wanted to walk down Sixth Ave. that day and so we did, and it was about the time we got to 42nd St., near the old 42nd St. Audio and Photo, when he turned to me while we waited for a light and smiled and said, "How many ways are you going to ask me about regrets?"

Then he put one of those ballplayer's hands gently on my shoulder and said, "Stop." And when a kid recognized him a block later and asked why he didn't want to get elected, meaning elected President, Cuomo said, "Who said anything about not wanting it? I just elected not to run."

copy That was when he had first reached out to the rest of the country with his eloquence and humanity and genius for common sense, reached out as well that night with what his dear friend Jimmy Breslin wrote were old ballplayer's hands.

Later, when I came at him one last time on regrets, he said, "Just say I was four steps away from wistful."

Only he, truly, ever knew why he did not run for President. But he did not run in '88, or in '92, when Clinton came out of Arkansas and felt as if he had come out of nowhere to not just take the nomination, but the presidency away from George H.W. Bush. So by this day in the New York City in the summer of '92, it had become official that the Cuomo, who had come out of neighborhood rooms as a Queens lawyer to be elected governor of New York the way his son would later would never go from being the son of Andrea and Immaculata Cuomo, from coming out of Briarwood, Queens, to hold the highest office in a country he had been taught was the capital of possibilities.

Jacino, Dan Only he, truly, ever knew why he did not run for President. But he did not run in '88, or in '92, when Clinton came out of Arkansas and felt as if he had come out of nowhere to not just take the nomination, but the presidency away from George H.W. Bush.

It was, and is, the country's loss. Everyone who ever knew Mario Cuomo, dead now because his great heart has given out at the age of 82, knew about the beauty in the man's soul, all the good in him. But that does not tell the whole story. This was a great man, as great as his city has ever produced.

We walked to the Garden that day with young guys yelling out "Yo, Mario," and we talked about all the things we would talk about in all the years I was privileged to know him, all the way until the last time I spoke to him a couple of months ago, before he fell ill. We talked about the city and the country and politics and what he always called the "general rhetoric and bulls---t" of politics. And newspapers. He loved newspapers. And we talked about baseball, which he had loved his whole life, even before he was good enough to become a Pirates farmhand once.

Theodorakis, Andrew/Theodorakis, Andrew We need his voice, to be talking about cops and race in America, about Ferguson, Mo. and Staten Island, about Michael Brown and Eric Garner. It was Cuomo, in that keynote speech in San Francisco, who spoke with passion as he deconstructed the Ronald Reagan narrative of a 'city on a hill,' and spoke about the real cities of America.

That was before law school, and those days when he was young when he became a voice for the voiceless, for people being pushed around in Corona on housing. Finally he was beating Ed Koch for governor in a race that was supposed to be Koch's to lose, one he started losing when Cuomo started telling voters that they didn't really have to choose, they could have both of them, Koch as mayor and Cuomo as governor. It is exactly what happened.

"It was," Cuomo always said, "just a practical matter."

Finally he was beating Ed Koch for governor in a race that was supposed to be Koch's to lose, one he started losing when Cuomo started telling voters that they didn't really have to choose, they could have both of them, Koch as mayor and Cuomo as governor. It is exactly what happened.

We need him today, of course, as much as we ever did, need his mind and his decency and his fairness. We need his voice, to be talking about cops and race in America, about Ferguson, Mo. and Staten Island, about Michael Brown and Eric Garner. It was Cuomo, in that keynote speech in San Francisco, who spoke with passion as he deconstructed the Ronald Reagan narrative of a "city on a hill," and spoke about the real cities of America.

That day in 1992, he was finally in a small fifth-floor room at the Garden, working with a TelePrompTer, just to see how long the speech was. There were only a few of us in the room, and then Cuomo began to read his own words, and they would be as thrilling in here as they would be later on the floor of the Garden.

Jim Garrett/New York Daily News This was the good in him, and greatness, and even the poetry he carried with him his whole life, filling one more room, along with that voice. We lose it all now, too soon. The country's loss, again, with Mario M. Cuomo.

In the middle of it, there was a moment - and you can look the speech up for yourself - when his voice rose and he talked about children in this country "growing up as familiar with the sound of gunfire before they've even heard an orchestra."

This was the good in him, and greatness, and even the poetry he carried with him his whole life, filling one more room, along with that voice. We lose it all now, too soon. The country's loss, again, with Mario M. Cuomo.

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