American Notes POLITICS

In 1988 New York Governor Mario Cuomo tantalized and frustrated Democrats by flirting with the presidential race before finally declining to run. Last week, while accepting his party's nomination for a third term, he stirred inevitable speculation about his designs on the White House in 1992.

Cuomo refused to promise that he would serve a full four-year term as Governor. He has already been doing some Washington bashing and finger waving about Republican greed's being the cause of the savings and loan mess; he considered deleting one such section from his address last week, then decided to leave it in. New York Democrats have a chance to win a majority in the state senate for the first time since 1966, and Cuomo will be involved in the effort to wrest control from the Republicans.

Thus this scenario: re-elected by a landslide and with both houses of the legislature under his control, Cuomo will be protected at home and primed to hit the hustings. The Bush Administration is so concerned about a potential Cuomo challenge that last week drug czar William J. Bennett fired an anti- Mario broadside. Said Bennett: "Nobody's afraid of this guy."