Gov. Cuomo suffered a rare political defeat over the weekend as he tried but failed to get Albany’s Democratic mayor to do something Mayor Bloomberg won’t do: shut down the local Occupy Wall Street demonstration.
About 200 mainly young, hippie-like demonstrators “occupied’’ Albany’s Academy Park across from the Capitol on Friday night, pitching some 30 tents, claiming solidarity with Zuccotti Park protesters, and chanting for, among other things, higher taxes on the wealthy.
Cuomo, fearful the action could spark a larger protest that would carry over and potentially disrupt the next legislative session — where his continued opposition to a “millionaire’s tax’’ will be highly controversial — demanded that Mayor Jerry Jennings, a longtime friend, enforce a city ordinance closing parks at 11 p.m.
While Jennings initially promised to do so, he then nervously backed down.
“Some of the governor’s people were pretty firm about our not doing this, letting them stay in the park, but basically, we had allowed this before . . . and my counsel said we’d be opening ourselves up to civil liability if we forced them out,’’ Jennings told The Post. But there was another reason as well, he conceded.
Albany’s leftist-oriented and highly political district attorney, David Soares, told city officials he wouldn’t prosecute demonstrators who were arrested by Albany police.
“My understanding is he spoke to the Albany police and told them he wouldn’t prosecute,’’ said Jennings.
A Soares spokeswoman declined to comment.
Cuomo last year considered Jennings as a possible running mate for lieutenant governor but picked Mayor Robert Duffy of Rochester instead.
“It’s fair to say that after Jennings’ performance with the demonstrators, the governor thinks he made the right choice,’’ said a source close to Cuomo.
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Cuomo’s surprise appointment of James Rubin, former assistant secretary of state for public affairs under President Bill Clinton, to the board of the Port Authority was billed as an effort to boost the authority’s foreign-affairs brainpower.
But it’s also being seen by many as the first sign that Cuomo is beginning to line up some foreign-policy expertise for a possible run for president in 2016.
“I mean, where did Rubin’s appointment come from? It was out of left field, except in terms of something down the road,’’ declared a prominent state Democrat.