The Reporter Had a Life Jacket, but the Governor Knew How to Ply a Paddle

Albany September 24, 2012, 3:00 pm

By THOMAS KAPLAN

NORTH HUDSON, N.Y. - Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo positioned himself in the stern of a canoe on Sunday while I clung to dry land a few feet away, befuddled by the straps on my life jacket. “We're going to make an outdoorsman out of him,” Mr. Cuomo declared.

I had been headed back to the lodge that served as Cuomo base camp when the governor approached. It was Hour 3 of Mr. Cuomo's field trip with members of his cabinet and the news media to the Boreas Ponds. I had already been on a walk - calling it a hike would be an exaggeration - with Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the governor had been fishing, on an expedition where rep orters' access was limited. (“Don't call it the ship of state,” he exhorted about his vessel.) But now the governor was eager to get back to the water.

“Do you canoe?” he asked me.

I do not. But, taking a lesson from the 21 months I have spent observing Mr. Cuomo field questions, I answered a slightly different question. “I've kayaked,” I said. (It quickly became apparent that, if I did not accept the governor's invitation, a reporter from The Wall Street Journal was ready to jump into the gubernatorial canoe.)

“Come on, Kaplan,” Mr. Cuomo instructed.

I got in the boat.

“This is what you do with an uncooperative reporter: a one-way canoe trip,” Mr. Cuomo announced to the journalists on land. (Perhaps his staff members knew something when they asked the reporters going on the trip to sign waivers of liability in case of accidents involving canoes - as well as cars, vans, motorboats, kayaks, rafts and bicycles.)

Mr. Cuomo, clad in a “Team Cuomo” Windbreaker (but not a life jacket - a choice the governor defended at a news conference Monday), sat in the back. He suggested that my primary responsibility was to ensure I did not fall out of the boat. He did not seek to correct my poor paddling form - which, in my own defense, was affected by my attempt to hold on to my tape recorder.

We quickly encountered other canoeists, including Mr. Cuomo's environmental conservation commissioner, Joseph Martens, who yelled out to the governor: “Who's the guy at the front of the boat? He looks like he's undercover.”

“State Police,” Mr. Cuomo joked. “I never go anywhere without them.”

As we paddled â€" or, more accurately, Mr. Cuomo paddled, and I attempted a movement that approximated paddling â€" the governor said he was very pleased with his outing as a means to talk up tourism, to call attention to the state's purchase of 69,000 acres for con servation in the Adirondacks, and to bond with his aides and commissioners.

A flotilla materialized nearby, some boats piloted by unlikely pairings of Cuomo aides and political reporters. (Mr. Cuomo's spokesman, Josh Vlasto, was described as an “unruly” canoe-mate by his canoeing companion, Reid Pillifant, of Capital New York, who said Mr. Vlasto “splashed at least one reporter and repeatedly shook our canoe as if to capsize it.”)

During our 15-minute voyage, Mr. Cuomo demonstrated his political chops by canoeing while simultaneously taking questions from reporters. As he paddled, he offered an assessment of the scenery (“magnificent”), rebuffed a request from a pair of reporters to race (“No, we're just here observing the beauty”) and joked about his history with boating (“I'm from a big canoeing family in Queens.”)

Soon, it started to rain. “When the sun goes down, and it starts to rain, it gets cold fast,” Mr. Cuomo warned me. It took a few minutes to reach the shore, and the governor continued to talk about the weather. “Gotta love it,” he said. “Nothing like cold rain in the Adirondacks.”