Political pros have a nice euphemism for the nasty, exaggerated and preemptive attacks that Gov. Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have launched against their little-known, underdog challengers:
They call it “defining the opponent” — as in, selling voters on the idea that rival candidates are monsters before they even have the chance to say hello.
Cuomo did it with a pair of TV spots that not-so-subtly played the race card against his Republican challenger, Westchester Executive Rob Astorino.
Citing a long-running fair housing dispute between Westchester and the federal government, the ads declared that Astorino has “repeatedly violated anti-discrimination laws” and showed “die-hard resistance to civil rights.”
Sponsored by the state Democratic Committee, the spots grossly oversimplified the facts, but succeeded in planting images of Bull Connor in viewers’ heads.
Schneiderman, meanwhile, wasted no time painting his GOP opponent, John Cahill, as a dire threat to abortion rights and female New Yorkers generally.
“To me, if you’re anti-choice, you’re anti-woman,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, part of a small army of Schneiderman supporters who sounded the alarm. “The comments he has made have clearly indicated that he is strictly, strictly anti-choice.”
The comment in question — made by Cahill in a recent radio interview — did not challenge abortion rights as they exist today in New York State, but merely questioned the necessity of enacting further protections.
For the record, a spokesman says Cahill is a Catholic who respects the teachings of his church. But, as A.G., he would be “committed to upholding the laws and Constitution of this state, whether that be the women’s right to choose, same-sex marriage or educational choice.”
In fights like this, the attackers end up defining themselves just as clearly as their attackees.
First, Cuomo and Schneiderman are confirming that they’re savvy political operators who know which wedge issues will break their way — and how to hand dirty work to surrogates to keep their own hands clean.
“The success of defining a little-known opponent is tried and true in modern politics,” says Democratic strategist Bruce Gyory. “You’d be foolish not to do it.”
To ordinary civilians, however, Cuomo and Schneiderman’s tactics smack of petty demagoguery.
The original target of the Westchester suit, for instance, was Astorino’s Democratic predecessor, Andrew Spano, whose aides initially characterized it as “garbage” before reaching a settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The case involves no allegations of overt racism, but a charge that the county’s zoning laws and other policies cause de facto segregation by shutting low-income families out of rich neighborhoods — a cutting-edge definition of discrimination never before enforced against a county.
Among the communities implicated is the upscale town of New Castle — which Cuomo himself calls home.
“If you really think it discriminates, why did you move there?” Astorino asks in a stinging rebuttal. ” And why didn’t you say anything about this before I was challenging you for governor?”
Hitting Astorino for stonewalling HUD is fair game. But painting him as racist is going too far.
So is tagging Cahill as a raving male chauvinist based on his legitimate reservations about the Women’s Equality Act.
According to its own supporters, that legislation would not change the abortion status quo in New York one iota — only solidify existing rights as a hedge against the hypothetical possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in the future. The version drafted by Cuomo is a convoluted mess likely to launch a thousand suits if it ever becomes law.
But in politics, as in warfare, truth is often the first casualty. And it’s only April, folks.
whammond@nydailynews.com
