Another Hamlet on the Hudson?

As I've said before, Clinton and Biden are the big dogs in the 2016 field. You could call them the top tier candidates. But nipping at their heels in terms of media attention and stature is the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. Speculation about Cuomo as a presidential candidate started pretty much from the moment he won the governorship in 2010 and really kicked off after he shepherded New York's marriage equality bill through the legislature in 2011.

The main reason for this is that the Governor of New York is a powerful political office and it's occupant tends to have a higher national profile than your average state executive. Especially when it comes to presidential aspirations. Even former New York Governor George Pataki (no one's idea of a political rockstar) was the subject of presidential speculation as recently as August of 2011. 

The fact is that New York Governors have a long history of running for president. We have had no less than nine of them run on major party tickets, starting all the way back with Old Kinderhook himself Martin Van Buren.

(Quick presidential trivia: Van Buren's nickname was often shortened to "O.K." and it is widely believed to be the source of that now ubiquitous phrase. Also, he was the first president to be born a United States citizen, and yet English was his second language. History!)

After him, you have Seymour, Tilden, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Hughes, Smith, FDR and Dewey. The Vice Presidency is the only office that has produced more presidential nominees. So it is easy to see why whoever happens to be Governor of New York will inevitably be cited as a potential candidate for higher office.

In Cuomo's case, there is also the lingering ghost of his father's candidacy that never was. Governor Mario Cuomo was thought to be a leading contender for the Democratic nomination in both 1988 and 1992, but declined to run both times. This earned him the moniker "Hamlet on the Hudson", an epithet you are almost certain to see resurface as 2016 approaches.

So basically, everything Gov. Cuomo does over the next four years is going to be scrutinized as good or bad for his latent presidential campaign, whether or not it ever goes full-blown.

The only potential stumbling block that I can foresee is if in Fall 2015 the price for leasing a home in New York is still exorbitantly overpriced. Or to put it another way...