Cuomo Hits the Magazine Stands, Head First

Left: Courtesy of New York Magazine; Right: Reprinted with permission from the April 8, 2013 edition of “The Nation.”

ALBANY - It was probably to be expected for a man whose name is invariably mentioned on a short list of 2016 presidential contenders, but Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has become a full-fledged cover boy, albeit one whose defining physical and personal characteristic seems to be his head.

That, at least, is the take-away from the illustrations and observations contained in a batch of national cover stories and splashy profiles of Mr. Cuomo over the last few weeks. And while each article hits many of the same themes - Mr. Cuomo’s unspoken presidential ambitions; his complicated relationship with his father; his sometimes cudgel-like political operation and oratorical styles - what’s more notable is their seeming obsession with the governor’s skull.

The most recent example came on Monday in New York magazine, whose front cover featured Mr. Cuomo’s outsized image, and his enormous, artificially enhanced visage, with the claim, “Andrew Cuomo may be the shrewdest American politician since LBJ.” (The headline inside and online, “The Albany Machiavelli,” was a little less flattering.)

The 6,000-word piece, by Chris Smith, opens with a scene set at an early March meeting where the governor apparently wowed a crowd of “left-leaning lunchers” with tales of his “New Democratic brand” and his on-time budgets, something Mr. Smith described as “a vivid illustration of the genius and expediency of the Andrew Cuomo method.” But then, too, it notes that “he’s engendered more fear than love” while in office. (Maybe it’s that gigantic skull)

The same lunch scene was also described in the April 8 cover story in The Nation, which praised Mr. Cuomo’s “winning combination of idealism, hardheaded political realism and charming self-effacement.”

But the Nation piece, which was written by Eric Alterman and went online in late March, also raised the specter of an almost schizophrenic political pragmatist whose progressive agenda stands in stark contrast to his low opinion of new taxes, which Mr. Alterman said made Mr. Cuomo “the soul brother to Grover Norquist.” (The print version of the article went to press before the governor struck a last-minute deal extending a special high tax for the state’s biggest earners, something the magazine noted online.)

The article - titled “Cuomo vs. Cuomo” - also had a creepy cranial look to it, with an eerie, and decidedly unappealing, cartoon of the governor bisected by two other caricatures.

The New Republic also played up a conflicted Mr. Cuomo in an article about the “running Freudian drama” between the current governor and his father, Mario (who was governor from 1983 to 1994), as well as the younger man’s affection for former President Bill Clinton. The headline was also psychologically obsessed: “Meanwhile, Inside Andrew Cuomo’s Head … It’s Mario vs. Bubba, Again.”

Here, too, the illustrations suggest a man whose noggin is not without nuance, showing Mr. Cuomo’s face, with a pair of penumbral profiles - his father’s and Mr. Clinton’s - leaning to either side.

The article, by Alec MacGillis, concludes with a note that Mr. Cuomo’s success on a national stage will rely on his ability “to transcend both his role models, or rather, to meld them into one, the deft tactician and the righteous idealist.”

“It would be quite an achievement,” Mr. MacGillis wrote, “essentially resolving the longstanding tension between his party’s heart and its head.”