Phil Reisman: Astorino is back, working Diaper Bank hours

It's difficult to imagine that Rob Astorino isn't having some kind of a post-election letdown.

For virtually two straight years the county executive of Westchester has put himself through the bruising, action-packed experience of running for office. Beating Noam Bramson in 2013 was just a local warm up, a boost to the ego.

But challenging a powerful incumbent governor, especially a governor with supposed presidential aspirations, well, the attention that comes from that can be mesmerizing — and even addictive.

In short, Astorino is trained and tempered for battle. He's a campaign road warrior. As veterans of the Civil War used to say, he's seen the "elephant," or Buffalo, anyway.

And now what? Now he's back to the day-to-day grind of being county executive, one of many in a state of 62 counties.

Over the long Thanksgiving Day weekend, Astorino kicked off a "Winter Wonderland" display of lights at the Kensico Dam in Valhalla. Before that, he presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Westchester County Diaper Bank, sponsored by the Junior League of Central Westchester.

Please don't misunderstand. The diaper initiative is a fantastic cause. Nevertheless, Astorino must have been thinking, "Only a few weeks ago, I was debating the serious issues confronting the Empire State — jobs, taxes and corruption — and now here I am talking about baby wipes!"

Oh, the humanity.

Speaking of wipes, we are reminded that the erstwhile gubernatorial candidate also finds himself renewing his dreary feud with the Democratic contingent of the county Board of Legislators, a group that was metaphorically (and enthusiastically) throwing rotten tomatoes at him from the sidelines of the governor's race. A personal favorite: Legislator MaryJane Shimsky's failed resolution, proposing that Astorino be removed from office for allegedly ignoring his responsibilities as county executive.

This is not unlike "Groundhog Day," the comedy film about being trapped in a repetitious hell in which every day begins with a clock radio, blaring Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe." In this version, Astorino once again finds himself waking up to a puzzled populace demanding to know why holding the property tax levy to zero doesn't necessarily mean that taxes in some towns won't go up.

Astorino's 2015 budget, which includes a proposal to borrow $15 million to pay for pension costs and $8 million for property tax refunds, elicited a rebuttal from Legislator Peter Harckham, who said, "This budget is paid for with our children's credit card."

Stop the tape right there. First of all, kids shouldn't have credit cards, but that isn't what Harckham meant. He meant that "our children" will have to pay for the borrowing when they're adults. Only thing is they won't be sticking around that long — which was Astorino's whole point when he ran for governor.

So, he's back to the same old salt mine, no doubt dusting off his trusty veto pen.

Astorino can feel good about one thing, though. His showing in the November election against Gov. Andrew Cuomo was much better than his low poll numbers indicated for months on end.

Indeed, an intriguing post by Zack Fink of the City & State blog suggests that Cuomo might have actually feared Astorino's candidacy to such an extent that he allegedly attempted to engineer a non-aggression pact.

Fink reported that unnamed sources told him that in September of 2013, Tishman Speyer President and Co-CEO Rob Speyer discussed the governor's race with four key figures — State Republican Chairman Ed Cox, GOP Senate Conference Leader Dean Skelos, Michael Lawler, who then was GOP executive director, and Robert Mujica, the GOP Senate counsel.

According to Fink, Speyer told the group that Cuomo asked him to convene the meeting because he, like them, wanted to keep the Republicans in charge of the state Senate because they gave him political cover.

Fink wrote, "If the party ran a candidate who could potentially beat Cuomo in 2014, however, the governor would spend $40 million to defeat that candidate and Senate Republicans."

Skelos said the person under consideration was Astorino to which Speyer supposedly replied, "Well, that's one candidate you can't run."

Afterward, when Cox called to say that Astorino was the GOP candidate, Cuomo, according to Fink, reacted with a tirade that included several "f" bombs — one of which he directed at the late Richard Nixon, who was Cox's father-in-law.

Everybody's denying any of this happened. (I got a "no comment" from Cox's spokesman David Laska.) Fink said Cuomo's people called it a "reporter's conspiratorial delusion."

Of course as we all know, Astorino ran. And the Republicans took over the Senate anyway.

Astorino isn't likely to see this kind of excitement again until 2018 when Cuomo's term is up. In the meantime, he's got to serve out his sentence, er, term, in the medium security confines of the County Office Building.

Reach Phil Reisman at preisman@lohud.com Twitter: @philreisman.