Letting The Cup Pass

Mario Cuomo is blessed -- or cursed -- with the ability to see both sides of any argument. As a lawyer, he was trained to plead pro and con and was always deft at making his case. As a man, he is inclined to argue inwardly, to question his motivations, his ambitions.

Openly for the past four months, inwardly for a good deal longer, Cuomo has been weighing the prospect of running for President. Tentative, sometimes coy, playing Hamlet on the Hudson, he has offered only hints as to what was going on inside his mind. But of late the New York Governor seemed to be off and running, what with testimony in Washington, a speech in California, a trip to New Orleans, plans to go to Iowa and New Hampshire. Many Democrats saw him as a figure who could inspire Democratic voters with an eloquent message of national compassion combined with fiscal common sense, although he has been criticized recently for favoring polished rhetoric over nitty-gritty discussion of the issues.

But last Thursday evening Mario Cuomo resolved his inner debate and quietly announced a stunning decision. As he was settling in at the cramped studio of a New York City radio station for a state-wide call-in show, the moderator told Cuomo he wanted to ask him whether he was going to run. "Go ahead," said Cuomo. "I may surprise you. Ask at the end of the program." With four minutes left, the moderator did so. Cuomo put on a pair of glasses, took a typewritten statement out of his pocket and began to read. "In my opinion," he said, "the Democratic Party offers a number of presidential candidates who can prove themselves capable of leading this nation toward a more sane, a more progressive and a more humane future. I will not add my name to that number . . . The decision is best for my state, best for my family, and I think, also, best for my party."

The announcement surprised even his staff. At a news conference the following day, Cuomo seemed to boast of his insular decision-making process: "I did it without telling anybody. The children didn't know." He was so concerned about secrecy that he had told his trusted secretary, who typed the announcement, that a different, noncommittal version was being typed up by someone else.

So why did Cuomo, in a biblical paraphrase he has often used in interviews, "let the cup pass"? Was it, perhaps, timing? "When you are second in the polls and you haven't even gotten in the game yet, there isn't any reason to be discouraged," said a wry and relaxed Cuomo the next day. He emphasized the difficulties of campaigning for the presidency while holding another office. "You can't win without going to Iowa and New Hampshire. One of the candidates has been in Iowa for 50 days. I can't say, 'Hi, I'm Mario Cuomo. I'm only here for a day because I have these guys in New York beating up on me.' "

Cuomo has been irked by newspaper stories questioning whether the law firm of his son Andrew, 29, his closest political confidant, has inappropriately benefited from family connections. Friends who talked to the Governor after the announcement say that he knew scrutiny of Andrew and other members of his family would become even more unrelenting in a presidential campaign.