ANDREW CUOMO IS PROBABLY TOO MUCH OF AN EGOMANIAC TO DO THE DAMAGE HE COULD DO

Bloomberg's Laura Nahmias tells us today that Andrew Cuomo wants to make a comeback.

Five months after he resigned over a swirl of sexual harassment allegations, New York’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo isn’t ruling out another run for public office. He insists it’s too soon to talk about it.

... if he had to do it all over, he wouldn’t have resigned, the former governor, 64, told Bloomberg News in a Friday telephone interview, one of a handful since leaving office. “I never resigned because I said I did something wrong. I said, I’m resigning because I don’t want to be a distraction,” Cuomo said.

It gets worse. Cuomo's people have also been talking to The Wall Street Journal's Jimmy Vielkind, who informed us yesterday that Cuomo could conceivably run against the attorney general whose report ended his governorship.

Some political operatives who have spoken with Mr. Cuomo or his aides said they think he is considering a run for attorney general this year against Ms. James. The people said Mr. Cuomo, who was attorney general from 2007 to 2010, never explicitly mentioned a campaign, but they inferred his interest based on the points he made about Ms. James and questions he asked about the state’s political climate.

... Mr. Cuomo has spent more than $1 million from his campaign account since leaving office and has $16 million on hand, according to the state Board of Elections.

(The New York Times recently published a story telling us that older women, primarily from outside New York State, are making significant contributions to the deep-pocketed ex-governor's campaign fund, although "There is some disagreement over the precise size of the battalion," according to the Times story, which suggests that the story is mostly hype.)

How much support would Cuomo get if he ran? In October, Siena College polled a possible Democratic primary field in the governor's race; Cuomo finished third, trailing the current governor, Kathy Hochul, by double digits. Cuomo was three points ahead of Letitia James, however, who at the time was planning to challenge Hochul. James has now withdrawn from that race and is seeking reelection.

I think James's poor showing in the gubernatorial poll was the result of positive feelings about Hochul. I don't think most Democratic voters reject James herself -- they're happy to have her as attorney general. She has a 55% approval rating among Democrats. There is a pro-Cuomo faction, but I think it's limited in size. I hope it is, at least.

Attempted comebacks by disgraced pols haven't worked out well here in New York. Anthony Weiner ran for mayor in 2013 and finished fifth in the Democratic primary, with 5% of the vote. Eliot Spitzer ran for city comptroller that same year and came closer, but he lost the primary by 4 points.

Spitzer had come to be seen as a good-government nerd rather than an egomaniac pleading with us to like him again; if Cuomo runs for office again, he's going to come off more like Weiner than Spitzer.

But in theory he could make trouble for James. He could force her to spend a lot of money in a competitive primary. He could level allegations agauinst her that a Republican opponent could use in a general election. The state GOP is hapless and hasn't won a statewide election in twenty years, but in what could be a GOP wave year nationally, it's possible that it wouldn't take much mischief to give the Republican candidate, whoever it might be, an opening.

If Cuomo really wanted to get revenge on James, he could run in the general election as a third-party candidate. Then he'd be a spoiler. Perhaps fortunately, that's not what he seems to want. He seems to want complete vindication. He'd like to be a winner and a party favorite again. He should really just go away, but maybe failing to make a comeback would be the next-best option.