The American Spectator

p> ANDY FIDDLES AND BURNS br> Maybe it’s the drought conditions and he’s not getting enough fluids. That, or it’s that hot Italian temper. Whatever, New York Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo went a bit nuts last week, saying Empire Staters should support him over Gov. George Pataki because the incumbent “failed to lead New York” after Sept. 11. /p>

Cuomo’s rant included a distasteful allusion to Pataki “playing second fiddle” to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “while the city burned.”

“There was one leader for 9/11: it was Rudy Giuliani,” Cuomo, told reporters on his campaign bus. Pataki “stood behind the leader. He held the leader’s coat. He was a great assistant to the leader. But he was not a leader.”

“We were stunned at the anger,” says a reporter who was riding on the bus. “Someone asked him if he was serious, or if he wanted to amend his comments for the record and he just kept spewing about Pataki. It was in shockingly bad taste.”

Cuomo’s antics are apparently the result of internal polling his campaign has undertaken that shows him losing ground to Democratic primary opponent, state comptroller Carl McCall. “We’re still up, but the numbers are real soft,” says a pollster who has done work for Cuomo in the past six months. “If this helps him with the hardcore Democrats who have been walking away from him for McCall, then maybe it was worth the risk. But I don’t even think his father [former Gov. Mario Cuomo] would have approved of this kind of hatchet job. I think this actually hurts him.”

p> PAYBACK TIME br> In the battle for the Democratic nomination for New York governor, there appear to be some lingering hard feelings between former President