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Cuomo Says Curbing Public Pension Benefits Will Be His Top Goal in ’12

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, basking in the afterglow of a legislative session that he described as “unusually successful,” said Wednesday that his top priority next year would be limiting retirement benefits for new state and city workers.

He said that his inability to win such an overhaul was the biggest failing of the session that just ended.

In a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors of The New York Times, the governor was both candid and combative as he offered his thoughts about the poor performance of schools statewide, his concern that high taxes are driving residents away and his reflections on his own use of charm and threats in an effort to win over lawmakers in Albany.

Mr. Cuomo, a longtime student of politics who has recently shied away from commenting on national affairs, called the Republican Party a prisoner of the “extreme right.” He predicted that President Obama would be re-elected despite the nation’s stubbornly high unemployment rate. And he took a gentle swipe at a predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a fellow Democrat, who he suggested had failed to understand the delicate interplay between the governor’s office and other elements of society.

“There is also something called the Legislature. There is something called the press. There is something called people. These are all different players on the stage,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I don’t think that was his forte.”

Mr. Cuomo said he was heartened by the accomplishments of his first six months — particularly the passage of a property-tax cap and the legalization of same-sex marriage — in a state capital divided by party and infamous for corruption and dysfunction.

But he attributed his legislative success to “a set of reasons that I don’t know are necessarily replicable,” and acknowledged that he was already at odds with lawmakers over how to draw legislative districts — an exercise that poses an existential threat to many elected officials. “We had a good period with the State Legislature,” he said. “I would not say that the problem has been solved with the State Legislature.”

The governor praised the state’s largest public employee union for agreeing to wage and benefits concessions this year, but also criticized unions for resisting lower retirement benefits for what he described as “the unborn” — future state workers for whom he wants to reduce pensions.

“This will be the bar for next year,” Mr. Cuomo said of his pension proposal.

Even as he mused about his future in Albany, he dismissed talk about a near-term future in Washington. Asked about a New York Post report that he would replace Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as Mr. Obama’s running mate next year, Mr. Cuomo said “there were no discussions” about that possibility.

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo at a bill-signing ceremony. In an interview on Wednesday, he addressed topics that included same-sex marriage.Credit...Ty Cacek/The New York Times

But Mr. Cuomo, who was housing secretary during the Clinton administration, weighed in on several pressing federal issues. He praised Mr. Obama’s management of the economy, saying “he brought us back from the abyss,” and criticized Republicans for gamesmanship over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, saying they were looking for ways to attack the president.

“It’s the tail that wags the dog,” he said. “I think they’ve lost control of the extreme right, and the extreme right is dictating what they’re doing.”

In Albany, the governor said he had assiduously courted lawmakers, who, he said, have been under siege for years. He said he had had numerous meals and conversations with legislators and their spouses and had repeatedly argued, “You know what, this could be a new beginning, and you can actually succeed and you can do well and you go home heroes.”

“Very few people go into politics to be reviled,” Mr. Cuomo said. “People go into politics because they want the affirmation, and they want the applause.”

Mr. Cuomo said he did not see a way to compromise with the Legislature over redistricting. The governor would like an independent commission to draw district lines, but he said any overhaul of the redistricting process was “all negative” for the Senate Republicans, because it threatened their majority.

“If they don’t draw the lines themselves, the odds of them retaining the majority go way, way down,” he said.

Mr. Cuomo, who shepherded the same-sex marriage bill through the Legislature, spoke glowingly of the four Republicans who provided the pivotal votes for it, pledging political support.

“The problem is, their threat now is from the Conservative Party,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I’m sort of the Antichrist to the Conservative Party. But anything I can do, I will do to help.”

The governor said that he had been asked to officiate at the weddings of several close gay friends, but that he did not intend to preside over any on July 24, the first day they will be legal in New York, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will officiate at the marriage of two of his top aides.

“I don’t want to compete with what the mayor’s doing,” Mr. Cuomo said.

Despite a dizzying legislative session filled with political uncertainty, Mr. Cuomo said, his biggest regret involved disagreement between his mother and his girlfriend, the Food Network celebrity Sandra Lee, over the proper preparation of his favorite dinner dish: lasagna. “That was the mistake I made over the past six months,” he said, mischievously. “Commenting on the lasagna.”

A correction was made on 
July 15, 2011

Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about an interview with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo misstated the date of the first day that same sex marriages will be allowed in New York. It is Sunday, July 24 — not this Sunday, July 17.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Cuomo Says Curbing Public Pension Benefits Will Be His Top Goal in ’12. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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