Despite Polls, Reasons Cuomo May Be Uneasy

Andrew Cuomo has seemed to put faith in Nicolo Machiavelli’s conclusion that it “is much safer to be feared than loved” because “men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared.”

More than 500 years later, the words stand up pretty well in the political context in which they were written, and evidence of how the Governor has lived them has cropped up in two recent corruption trials. In the one in which his former top aide Joe Percoco was convicted four months ago, it surfaced in testimony about attempts to pressure valued staffers against leaving his administration for other jobs. In the Buffalo Billion case that concluded last week, it pivoted on how Alain Kaloyeros was regarded as Mr. Cuomo’s “economic guru” but was uneasy enough about his standing with the Governor that he went to illegal lengths to improve it.