Cuomo pushes political agenda at expense of Cataract City

The policies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo have bled the city of Niagara Falls of tens of millions of dollars over the past two years, and now we know what he's doing with that money. The governor has allocated $50 million of state budget funds to create and launch a series of campaign commercials promoting his 2016 candidacy for president.

You've probably seen it: Images of prosperous factories, railroad cars and canal boats. Workers with stern and determined faces. No less a personage than actor Robert DeNiro intones our history over a pulsing beat generated by rap star Jay Z: "This is New York State. We built the first railway. The first trade route to the west. The greatest empires. We pushed the country forward.

"Then some said we lost our edge."

The Spike Lee-directed spot, created by Manhattan-based   advertising firm BBDO and funded by the Empire State Development Corporation (parent of USA Niagara), proceeds to tout Cuomo's "The New New York Works for Business" campaign. By the end of the 30-second spot, it's clear that New York is back and standing tall, as evidenced by windmills, half-built skyscrapers, more images of grim, purposeful workers in full stride, and high-tech robots injecting unidentified fluids into rows of test tubes. And if you haven't experienced celebrity overdose by then, Alicia Keys warbles on as we are directed to the website "theNewNY.com". There, you are greeted by Gov. Cuomo himself, framed by the American flag, his arm sweeping forward in a grand salute as he informs the nation that "Creating jobs and welcoming business are both critical to our future. New York State is open for business."

An unnamed writer on a "blog" put it succinctly: "DeNiro is just an actor, albeit a NY booster. It's only natural that he lend his voice to this paean to the distant past when NY was a significant industrial presence. Kodak, gone; Xerox, shadows; IBM, still functioning, but not really producing anything. Doubt that a Cuomo would be in charge during an industrial rebirth."

In case you live in Butte, Mont., or Saginaw, Mich., and wouldn't know Andrew Cuomo from a hill of beans, four additional 30-second ads have been created by BBDO, also slated for national distribution. Presently available at various websites, these spots continue the "Open for Business" theme, spotlighting Cuomo's transformative leadership in such areas as yogurt production and the manufacture of electric cars in one of the highest taxed, most highly regulated states in the country.

Strangely, the first three seconds of the yogurt commercial show a man and a cow in a field, and falling into the category of stuff you couldn't make up if you tried, the guy stands there stroking the cow's behind, for reasons known only to him or perhaps someone at the billion-dollar ad agency with a sense of humor.

Earlier this year the Cuomo administration had paid $5 million to BBDO to reinvent the classic "I Love NY" campaign, replacing the classic heart with various other symbols of the New York tourism industry, at one point garnering suggestions from the public. Widely ridiculed, the program was dropped after gas industry critics submitted the logo with a drilling rig, as in "I fracked NY."

Using public service  announcements paid for by taxpayer dollars as thinly-disguised campaign ads is a well-honed strategy going back at least as far as Cuomo's dad Mario. Examples are easily viewed on YouTube.  In one ad that played nationally, Gov. Mario Cuomo welcomes tourists from the top of the Empire State Building. In another, he fondles vegetables and prattles on about his humble beginnings, being raised by immigrant parents in a grocery store, as a pretense for promoting New York State agricultural products.

But it was former Gov. Pataki who raised these acts of self-promotion at taxpayer expense to a fine art, so much so that bills were introduced in the state legislature to ban the practice. Pataki played the starring role in a series of "Come Visit New York" tourist ads, followed by "Healthy New York" insurance plugs, and then "Rebuild New York" and finally, "I Love New York" ads that played prominently in Republican and early primary states during the year running up to the 2008 presidential election.
Pataki's abuse of the system was so blatant that one of Eliot Spitzer's first positions on being elected governor, besides those assumed during his dalliances with high-priced hookers, was to put an end to this wasteful extravagance.

Enter Andrew Cuomo, borrowing from the past to build his case for 2016, with $50 million worth of help from New York State taxpayers. 

Here is a link to the yogurt commercial:http://www.thenewny.com/Stories/Fage.aspx