Obama Hails Mario Cuomo As A ‘Determined Champion Of Progressive Values’

President Barack Obama greets troops and their families on Christmas Day, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2014, at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii during the Obama family vacation. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama is praising former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo as an unflinching voice for tolerance, fairness and opportunity.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama are sending condolences to the relatives and friends of Cuomo, who died Thursday at 82.

Obama says Cuomo was “a determined champion of progressive values.” He says Cuomo was also a voice for dignity and inclusiveness.

Obama says Cuomo’s personal history taught him that Americans are bound together as one people. He says Cuomo learned that the nation’s success depends on all of its citizens succeeding, and not just a lucky few.

The White House says Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii, also called Cuomo’s son Andrew Cuomo to offer condolences. The younger Cuomo started his second term Thursday as New York’s governor.

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  1. Thank you, Mr. President.

  2. Cuomo would have made an interesting president. Enlightened yet ruthless.


  3. Ah Hah . . .

    Why doesn’t it surprise me that there so few comments?

    Could it be that very few self-identified “progressives” wish to acknowledge the life work of an unabashed true DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL?

    He was correct in 1984. And today we are still feeling the effects of Reagan’s policies as Cuomo warned in his speech at the National Convention Keynote Address, San Francisco, California:

    ...The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that this is how we were warned it would be. President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. "Government can't do everything," we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class.

    You know, the Republicans called it "trickle-down" when Hoover tried it. Now they call it "supply side." But it's the same shining city for those relative few who are lucky enough to live in its good neighborhoods. But for the people who are excluded, for the people who are locked out, all they can do is stare from a distance at that city's glimmering towers.

    ~OGD~

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