Do you see that?” said Andrew Cuomo, who was making the rounds over brunch at Melba’s in Harlem one Sunday in March. Earlier that the morning, Cuomo had given a speech at Mount Neboh Baptist Church on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, just down the street from here, calling for the hiring of 5,000 more police officers and levying a blistering attack on the left flank of the Democratic Party—some members of which were running against him for mayor—for uttering what he called “the three dumbest public-policy words you can utter: ‘Cut the police.’”
The speech was well received, and the former governor gained an endorsement from the pastor, a longtime ally, and now here he was remarking on the inverted political landscape of the Democratic Party and trying to get in a couple of more shots at the antagonists to his left.
