Michael Goodwin: Cuomo should thank Mamdani for making him look like the safe, stable choice for NYC mayor

In his race for mayor, Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has done the impossible: He’s made Andrew Cuomo look like a safe, stable choice.

Mamdani pulled off the remarkable feat by breaking a cardinal rule of politics: Don’t scare ­people.

But he has done exactly that by taking such radical positions in the Democrats’ mayoral primary that the portion of the electorate that hasn’t fallen for his vision of a socialist utopia realizes his policies would wreck New York.

His mantra of free this and free that, combined with a rent freeze on 1 million privately owned rent-regulated apartments, while promising that higher taxes on the rich would pay for everything, is music only to the ears of those who are ignorant about history and the laws of economics and human nature.

He’s also anti-cop to the core, which is the absolute last thing New York needs in City Hall.

Mamdani, just 33 years old, is vying to become the city’s youngest mayor.

He’s got clever videos and a lively presence on social media.

The base of his support comes from young New Yorkers, which proves the wisdom of ­George Bernard Shaw’s observation that “youth is wasted on the young.”

Then there are those ardent leftists behind him who refuse to grow up, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Born in Uganda, Mamdani would also be Gotham’s first Muslim mayor, and his refusal to recognize Israel as the legitimate homeland for Jews is another bridge too far.

New York has more Jews than any other city in the world, and the idea that its mayor would support BDS and other policies that aim to damage and even destroy Israel is unthinkable.

‘New antisemitism’

There’s already been a disgraceful outbreak of that virus on city college campuses, especially ­Columbia.

The chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are a call for the elimination of Israel.

As the late British rabbi Jona­than Sacks put it, “Denying Israel’s right to exist is the new anti­semitism.”

All these radical positions from his top challenger have served to rescue Cuomo from his own dustbin.

Forced to resign in his third term as governor in August 2021 by an avalanche of sexual discrimination and harassment complaints, he left Albany with some significant accomplishments, but without a single friend.

He would have been impeached and forced from office had he not resigned.

His handling of the COVID pandemic, which initially brought him national acclaim, was flipped on its head by his disastrous order requiring nursing homes to take infected patients.

More than 15,000 elderly people died in nursing homes or got fatal doses of COVID in them, a fact that became even more notorious when it was learned Cuomo had concealed some 4,000 of the deaths connected to the facilities while he negotiated a $5 million book deal with Crown publishing.

His decision to run for mayor has always seemed more motivated by a desire to redeem his name and get back into politics rather than a passion for the day-to-day grind of City Hall.

Indeed, many of the issues facing New York — such as too lenient criminal justice measures and congestion pricing — were ones he signed into law as governor.

There’s also the question of how he would deal with his many enemies in Albany, given that the Legislature and governor control billions in subsidies the city counts on and that the state Constitution limits the city’s powers.

Lackluster frontrunner

Not surprisingly, Cuomo’s campaign has been lackluster, but he has maintained a consistent lead in the polls owing largely to some of his successful projects, such as the redevelopment of La Guardia Airport, and the fact that most of his eight competitors are either unimpressive or relatively ­unknown.

He also has been diligent in courting Orthodox Jewish voters in Brooklyn and middle-class black voters in his native Queens.

Cuomo’s refusal to concede any error in the nursing home catastrophe has been shameful and likely would have sealed his fate — were it not for the rise of ­Mamdani.

The assemblyman has consistently been in second place but some recent polls indicate he has closed to within striking distance.

That change has alarmed elements of the city’s old guard establishment, which is suddenly rallying to Cuomo’s side.

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg was never close to Cuomo when they were both in office, but he has ­become a major supporter.

He endorsed Cuomo last week and three days later made a $5 million donation to Fix The City, a super PAC supporting the former governor that has been flooding local television with ads calling Mamdani a “risk.”

It may not be a coincidence that similar language and tone dominated a shocking New York Times editorial Monday, where the paper all but endorsed Cuomo.

It accused Mamdani of embracing “a certain version of progressive city management that has failed,” which it identified as the “version pushed by Mayor Bill de Blasio [inset] that was skeptical of if not hostile to law enforcement, claimed schools needed more money and less evaluation and blamed greedy landlords for high rents, instead of emphasizing the crucial role of housing supply.”

The opinion writers went on to say, “We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots,” because “his experience is too thin, and his agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio’s dismaying mayoralty.”

To twist the knife, the editorial added that Mamdani “shows little concern about the disorder of the past decade, even though its costs have fallen hardest on the city’s working-class and poor residents.”

Still, there was no love for ­Cuomo, with the paper saying “we have serious objections to his ethics and conduct, even if he would be better for New York’s future than Mr. Mamdani.”

Talk about a backhanded endorse­ment!

Although it credited him with enacting measures it supports, including paid family leave, a higher minimum wage, strict gun-control and fossil-fuel restrictions, the editorial was effectively repudiating much of the Times’ own agenda.

Reality bites leftist NYT

After all, it endorsed Bill de Blasio for mayor, consistently railed against the NYPD and supported every new cockamamie ­social program City Hall could ­devise.

Suddenly, now the paper deems his eight years in City Hall a total failure.

Welcome to reality, Gray Lady!

Early voting in advance of next Tuesday’s primary day suggests there will be a larger turnout than the 2021 primary, where about 950,000 people voted, or 25% of registered Dems.

Perhaps equally important, far left groups are trying to game the ranked-choice system by urging voters to rank Mamdani and anyone else except Cuomo among their five choices.

In effect, all those votes would end up going to Mamdani, starting in the convoluted second round of counting.