For De Blasio and Cuomo, the Tension Comes Easily (NY Times)

Somewhere in here, there's the reporter's realization that the two represent different constituencies. Well that's for sure. Big Bill represents the 74% of the NYC electorate that voted for him and Cuomo represents the 45 million dollars he took in during his recent quest for reelection. ( Did he even get 50% of the vote? I don't think so.)
From the NY Times, earlier this week.

>>>Mayor Bill de Blasio and his team saw the plan as a sure winner: an ambitious commitment to repurpose the Sunnyside Yards rail depot in Queens and create over 11,000 new units of affordable housing.

They held preliminary discussions with Amtrak and the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and warned the transit agency weeks in advance that an announcement might be a part of the mayor’s State of the City address on Feb. 3. Only the night before, though, did City Hall aides tell Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office about Mr. de Blasio’s grand plan.

Mr. Cuomo’s response was swift and stern. Within hours of the speech, the governor’s chief spokeswoman issued a statement pronouncing the site “unavailable for any other use in the near term.” As if to punctuate the message, half a dozen senior officials with the transportation authority, long scheduled to meet with the city about the project on Feb. 6, abruptly pulled out.

The clash over Mr. de Blasio’s marquee project gave a powerful jolt to what has become the most intense and long-running drama in New York politics: the uncomfortable domestic dispute, played out in the headlines, between two Democratic leaders who describe themselves as friends but appear deeply incompatible as partners in government.

Never an easy collaboration, the relationship between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio has become steadily more strained, according to close associates of both who insisted on anonymity to avoid reprisal from either one. Now, with Mr. Cuomo’s re-election behind him, a budget fight brewing in Albany and the looming possibility of a 2016 Democratic convention in Brooklyn, the flare-ups have grown more frequent and more heated.

The simmering rivalry between a strong-willed, deal-making governor and a defiantly idealistic mayor might be unsightly, the associates say, but it is not irrational. Above all, it arises from the tension between the mayor’s monumental aspirations as a Democratic leader in liberal New York City, and the governor’s emphatic preference for stability and control in a state >>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/nyregion/for-cuomo-and-de-blasio-the-tension-comes-easily.html?_r=0