RYE BROOK, N.Y. (AP) — Andrew Cuomo took on a
Democrat-controlled state government that’s become a national
embarrassment and a Republican Party gunning for him as he took a
big step Thursday toward winning the governor’s job once held by
his father and Democratic icon, Mario Cuomo.

Accepting his party’s nomination, Cuomo mixed traditional
liberal Democratic themes like combatting discrimination, embracing
immigrants, and protecting abortion rights with Republican
principles like capping property tax increases, reducing state
spending and shrinking government. He also said that “New Yorkers
can’t afford a tax increase at this time.”

“We believe in E pluribus unum: In many, one,” Cuomo said. “That
idea made this state the greatest state in the nation and it will
once again.”

Cuomo took slaps at his Democratic colleagues in Albany, where a
national reputation for dysfunction, gridlock and ethical scandal
has been cemented over the last four years, even as a fiscal crisis
threatened the state’s solvency.

“People are hurting,” he said. “The state government that was
supposed to be part of the solution was part of the problem.”

He had most of the Democratic delegates on their feet cheering
as he avoided dwelling on some of his thornier proposals, including
support for charter schools that compete with traditional public
schools and the need to cut state spending supported by special
interests like organized labor.

“I saw a lot of references to change and references to restoring
New York,” said Steven Greenberg of the Siena College poll who
attended Cuomo’s nomination. “Given the overwhelming feeling of
people right now that the state is headed in the wrong direction,
it’s an obvious message for him to try to capitalize on.”

A Siena College poll released Monday found 72 percent of New
Yorkers feel the state is headed in the wrong direction, despite
some signs of economic recovery. At the same time, the poll gave
Cuomo a 67 percent approval rating for the job he’s done as the
state’s attorney general, extraordinarily high, especially in a
time of voter anger at incumbents.

Republicans will try to capitalize on that anger, which led to
losses for scores of incumbents in New York elections last fall,
almost all of them Democrats.

State Republican Chairman Ed Cox went on the attack Thursday,
saying Cuomo made “naive regulations” as federal housing secretary
under President Bill Clinton that led to the collapse of mortgage
markets and a national recession. Cuomo and several business
publications dispute claims he’s to blame for the housing
crisis.

Cox also said that when he ran for attorney general, Cuomo “said
he was going to clean up Albany. Well, the sheriff of Albany went
then to the jail house, put his feet up on the desk, and closed his
eyes to the culture of corruption that has afflicted Albany over
the past three-and-a-half years.”

He was referring Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Comptroller Alan Hevesi,
Democrats who resigned in disgrace after scandals, and three Senate
Democratic leaders now under investigation. Cox didn’t mention this
year’s corruption conviction of longtime Republican Senate leader
Joseph Bruno.

Cox said Cuomo only acted on investigations after the cases were
revealed in newspapers. He said Cuomo is incapable of fixing the
state’s fiscal crisis, including the $9.2 billion deficit in a $130
billion state budget that is nearly two months late amid gridlocked
negotiations.

“Andrew Cuomo now says, ‘I’m a fiscal conservative,'” Cox said,
in announcing his website, www.PrinceAndrewWatch.com. “Well, he’s
been a tax-and-spend liberal Democrat during his entire
career.”

Greenberg agreed Republicans have plenty of time to make their
case and potentially chip away at Cuomo’s lead in the polls, now
three times that of his Republican opponents.

Republican Gov. George Pataki had similarly low name recognition
and public support but went on to beat Mario Cuomo in 1994.

Andrew Cuomo will face one of several Republican candidates,
including former congressman Rick Lazio, Suffolk County Executive
Steve Levy and Buffalo developer Carl Paladino, who is associated
with the GOP’s tea party movement.

Cox tried to dismiss reports that his favored candidate for
governor, Democrat-turned-Republican Steve Levy, was losing
support. A Queens Republican leader jumped Wednesday from Levy to
newly announced GOP candidate, Meyers Mermel, a finance
consultant.

Cox said Levy and Lazio each have between 40 percent and 49
percent of the support of Republican delegates at this time. The
convention begins Tuesday in Manhattan.

“This is a Republican year,” Cox said. “The Democrat gang has
driven New York state into this fiscal ditch of bankruptcy.”