Kathy Hochul is new to the job of being New York’s governor. When she became governor after Andrew Cuomo’s disgrace, several media outlets insisted: Do not underestimate Kathy Hochul! See here. And here. How did they know the temptation would be to underestimate her? Probably because every other media outlet, including those owned by other major New York political figures, was running stories titled, “Who is Kathy Hochul?”
That was my reaction, too. Who is this person? I live in the part of New York that gets taxed for the Metro Transit Authority, the part around New York City. And I naturally expect governors to be from downstate. Every previous governor of this state in my life was born in New York City or within a thinkable commute of it. Every governor for the past 100 years has been from downstate and the Hudson Valley. George Pataki grew up a short drive from where I live. The previous governor’s brother lived a few miles away from where I type this. Even John Jay’s house is a few stone’s throws away. But Kathy Hochul is from Buffalo. A great city, which is, by the reckoning of our neighbors, somewhere way out there, part of the Midwestern Rust Belt. I mean no offense. By all rights, upstate should secede from the city to become more fully what it is. But to me and to the majority of New Yorkers who live downstate, Hochul might as well be from Estonia.
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