Gov. Andrew Cuomo loaded up in a vintage car previously used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to drive to and fro on the new ramp. | Anna Gronewold/POLITICO Cuomo Photo Op 101: Exit 3

ALBANY — The morning after Election Day isn’t always time for a celebration, but for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Nov. 6, 2019 was the perfect day for a multi-stage production hitting all the Cuomonian pleasure points.

After a night that held few direct threats to Cuomo or Democratic rule statewide, the three-term governor convened a bipartisan swath of Capital Region officials at the Desmond Hotel in Albany to celebrate the opening of a new exit from the Northway near the Albany International Airport, the third time he’s held a public event for Exit 3 this year.


The draw for reporters this time was a promised opportunity for Cuomo to address Tuesday's local elections, his evolving take on fusion voting and the fate of New York’s third parties, and his ongoing war of words with President Donald Trump.

But upon arrival, the governor's aides said all of that would come last and at a different location, at about Stage Five in the extended photo opportunity for the 61-year-old newly permanent Albany resident.

Stage One was a multimedia presentation to a room of appreciative officials celebrating an ahead-of-schedule completion for the Exit 3 flyover ramp, as well as newly configured off- and on-ramps to local roads and to the Northway, all part of a $72.1 million modernization.

Cuomo took the opportunity to regale his audience with an anecdote about working on his father’s campaigns as a young man and trying to get a list of endorsements from famed Albany Mayor Erastus Corning. The mayor, Cuomo said, sent back a full directory of city officials, saying, "Son, if they don't support your father, they are not city officials."

(Some longtime Albany observers weren't prepared to accept the tale on its face, with one wondering if such a directory existed in print nearly four decades ago.)

Renderings for a new airport welcome sign were also unveiled at the ceremony, and Cuomo promised, thrice, that the airport would be completely revamped by spring, joking that current and former CEOs of the Albany County Airport Authority, Phil Calderone and John O'Donnell, will leave if it doesn’t happen.

Stage Two consisted of brief remarks to a luncheon for Department of Transportation workers involved in the project. The fun escalated at Stage Three, a field trip to the actual exit itself.

The site for Stage Three was just around the corner from Stage Two, but was far enough that Cuomo loaded up in a vintage car previously used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (which the state paid about $10,000 to fix up ) to drive to and fro on the new ramp.

The press made the short journey in an entirely different mode of transport. Reporters were shuttled to the exit, about a quarter mile away, while standing in the backs of Department of Transportation rack trucks, exposed to the November wind. Some of the governor’s aides also were aboard the trucks, communicating varying levels of enthusiasm and concern about the situation to bemused reporters losing their footing with each turn.

“You’re going to get to go the wrong way on the Northway! It’s going to be cool,” one aide said.

Area traffic was redirected for the small procession, ironically aimed at demonstrating how the project will eliminate congestion in the area.

Stage Four was a ribbon-cutting, with a lineup of yellow-vested officials, Cuomo’s infrastructure head Kelly Cummings, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and DOT commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez. They wielded several pairs of scissors about the size of Cuomo’s dog, Captain. Cuomo's office did not respond by press time to a request regarding where one can acquire oversized office supplies.

Cuomo then took questions on the ramp in his own way, reframing inquiries or shooting them down as he saw fit.

“Not to get in the way of a good news story, but let’s talk some facts,” he told a radio reporter who asked his opinion on rumored restrictions on fusion voting and how new campaign finance thresholds would affect third parties .

Tuesday's local elections reaffirmed his moderate position as a results guy, he said: “I think voters rewarded performance, which is what they should do. Government is about results. People don’t follow all this political analysis, they say, ‘did you make my life better?'"

And he spent several minutes rehashing his antagonistic relationship with President Donald Trump, which has escalated in recent days. He provided details about the ways he took the high road by going out of his way to work with Trump on state and local tax deductions, the Gateway Tunnel and funding for the Second Avenue Subway.

“I sent letters, phone calls, I did all of that," he said. "You know what New York has got back from Trump. Nothing, nada, goose egg. To say that I didn’t make an effort? That’s what they call a lie. Because it’s not even, like, a mistake, because it was well documented.”

Cuomo, a self-proclaimed laid-back, cool dude who likes to build things, drive old cars, maintain the upper hand in interviews and leave a legacy as a champion of upstate, seemed satisfied with his party.

“It’s a great project, it’s well done, the sun is shining, what could be better?” he said.