Gov. Andrew Cuomo should beware 'Cantor Effect'

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's worst nightmare isn't Rob Astorino. It isn't even U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and the Moreland Commission fiasco that's been festering all summer.

No, the specter haunting Cuomo is former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the wraith-like power broker from Virginia who lost to a woefully underfunded, relatively obscure Tea Party opponent in a Republican primary in June. That wasn't supposed to happen, but it did — and Cantor, who last was seen vacationing in the Hamptons, is still walking around like he got hit with a two-by-four.

Cuomo has studied the "Cantor Effect," a political disease born of hubris, overconfidence and a tendency to take voters for granted. Like Cantor, he faces a spirited challenger from his own party who should not be taken lightly.

Zephyr Teachout, a left-leaning Fordham University professor, has scant name recognition and campaign funds amounting to a bag of nickels. She is a long shot, an underdog — whatever you want to call somebody who has little more than a snowball's chance in hell.

Yet Cuomo knows she can do considerable damage in the Sept. 9 Democratic primary. Here's why:

Primaries attract only a small percentage of voters. Those who do vote are the party faithful, who are informed and motivated. Teachout may be unknown to most people, but the Democrats who are likely to vote Sept. 9 certainly know who she is. Because many of them are public-union members who don't like Cuomo, they are motivated to vote for her.

To be clear, Teachout hasn't gotten universal support from the unions. But she picked up endorsements from the Public Employees Federation and the Buffalo Federation of Teachers. On Tuesday, she was the guest of honor at a rally staged by Local 628 of the Yonkers firefighters union at Dunwoodie Golf Club. Later she met with Democratic friendlies in Hastings-on-Hudson, a place about which the writer and former resident Harry Stein once observed, "To say Hastings is liberal is like saying Saudi Arabia is Muslim." (Cuomo sent a surrogate.)

Also this week, Cuomo's camp was embarrassed when the New York State AFL-CIO decided to sit out the primary and not endorse anyone.

Teachout may be short on charisma. But she does appeal to the anybody-but-Cuomo rebels, a Democratic amalgam of anti-frackers, Main Street merchants, public-school supporters, Bill de Blasio acolytes and good-government folks who, thanks to the Moreland mess, think Cuomo may be part of Albany's corruption problem. If they're not exactly zealots for Zephyr, they do want to teach the governor a lesson. They don't want to be taken for saps.

I've heard a wide range of predictions about turnout for the Democratic primary. Teachout's campaign expects the turnout to be around 15 percent — "and already 15 percent of Democrats know who we are," Teachout campaign manager Mike Boland said. "Most of the people who know us are voting for us."

Look for Cuomo to spend lots of money in the next few weeks before the primary, especially now that it's assured Teachout will be on the ballot. His campaign failed to get her removed from the ballot on the grounds that she didn't meet state residency requirements. Cuomo appealed the decision but the appellate court decided Wednesday in Teachout's favor, news that will further galvanize her fans.

There's a second nightmare scenario to consider. Cuomo could end up with a lieutenant governor not of his choosing. His running mate is Kathy Hochul, a former western New York congresswoman who has conservative views and who has been nearly invisible in the race. Cuomo is likely to win the primary and go on to defeat Astorino in the general election, but don't bet the ranch on Hochul.

In primaries, lieutenant governor candidates run on their own, a rule that could lead to a shotgun marriage in the general election. It's conceivable that Teachout running mate Tim Wu, a Columbia Law professor, could defeat Hochul, whom he has described as a "Republican running in a Democratic primary, trying to get on the general election ballot through a sham party."

In 1982, Ed Koch ran for the Democratic nomination against Mario Cuomo and lost. But Koch's running mate, then-Westchester County Executive Al DelBello, won the second banana slot, defeating H. Carl McCall. The Cuomo-DelBello ticket won the general election, which meant purgatory for DelBello. After two frustrating years of doing virtually nothing, DelBello resigned.

Hear that chain rattling? It's a warning from the ghost of Eric Cantor.

Reach Phil Reisman at preisman@lohud.com

Twitter: @philreisman