By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
The former New York State governor, who was compelled to resign under several investigations, is trying to improve his public image.
As reported by Bloomberg News, on Monday Andrew Cuomo officially launched an advertising campaign, with digital and television ads ready. In a bid to rehabilitate public opinion of him, Cuomo is spending $370,000 on a New York advertising campaign, just for the week of Feb. 28 through March 6, as per AdImpact, a media tracking firm. The bulk of the ads, and $282,900 of the money, will be concentrated in New York City; with the next importance given to Albany and Buffolo, where he is spending about $18,000 each, for the week.
The move comes six months after his embarrassing resignation, which followed a bombshell report from NY Attorney General Letitia James indicting him with several sexual-harassment allegations. The former governor was also under investigation for allegedly hiding the number of NY nursing home deaths early on in the pandemic.
The first of the ads, is entitled “Politics vs. The Law”. The 30-second clip shows a montage of news clips and headlines that try to imply that the AG’s independent investigation on Cuomo was just a political grab on her part, in which he was the victim. The ad ends with the narrator saying: “Political attacks won. And New Yorkers lost a proven leader.”
The ad drew swift criticism from victims and women’s rights organizations. “Instead of accepting responsibility, serial sexual harasser Andrew Cuomo continues to challenge the accounts of victims,” a group of nine women’s rights and advocacy organizations, including Eleanor’s Legacy, Amplify Her and Women of Color for Progress, said in a statement on Monday.
The ads are being paid for by the Cuomo campaign, which is still fighting to attack the credibility of his multiple accusers. “We will continue to communicate the facts to New Yorkers: The AG knowingly and willfully ignored evidence of perjury, witness tampering and extortion, and hid exculpatory evidence when she misled the public in her sham report last August,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.
A spokesman for James responded Monday saying, “The only thing Andrew Cuomo has proven himself to be is a serial sexual harasser and a threat to women in the workplace — no TV ad can change that.”
As per the NY Post, Cuomo still has a long way to go to win over public opinion. A Siena College poll, released last week, found that 58 percent of New Yorkers surveyed believe Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, while just 21 percent said they think he did nothing wrong.
