Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo — once the nation’s most eligible bachelor, the Emmy award-winning “Luv Guv” who ensorcelled hordes of swooning Cuomosexuals — is getting restless. Resigning in disgrace after 11 different women accused him of sexual harassment, including groping, unwanted kisses, and inappropriate insinuations and innuendo, Albany’s own Randy Andy has decided he’s served enough time in political purgatory, and is readying his return to public life. 

Tapping his $18 million campaign war chest — which is just sitting there, after all — Cuomo on Monday released a slickly-produced television commercial detailing how the case against him “appears to be crumbling.”

The spot explains — accurately, as it happens — that county prosecutors have largely declined to pursue criminal charges against the handsy ex-governor, though some have called the allegations credible. “Political attacks won,” the commercial concludes, to an image of Cuomo boldly signing some piece of legislation — perhaps bail reform, or an order forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients — “And New Yorkers lost a proven leader.” 

Political klatches from Albany to Third Avenue are abuzz with chatter about what the advertisement means. Is it a signal that Cuomo plans to jump into the race against his replacement, Governor Hochul? Premiering the night before ballot petitioning started — aspirants need 15,000 signatures to get on the June ballot — the commercial certainly looks like a flag to see which way the winds are blowing, and how briskly. 

The stubborn fact remains that Cuomo was driven out of office by a kind of palace coup, which was sealed by Attorney General Tish James’ investigative report substantiating the allegations against him, followed by moves in the legislature to begin impeachment proceedings. But he retained popularity among New York’s Democratic voters, many of whom were still awed by Cuomo’s pandemic-related briefings and his media-created status as “America’s Governor.” 

The public is fickle, though, and polls a few months into the Hochul administration indicated that New York Democrats were satisfied with their new governor. Cuomo, intoned the pollsters, is old news. But there’s no question that Kathy Hochul, who seems competent in the most generous sense of the word, hardly inspires passion.  

Hochul is facing primary challenges from the hard left NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and the self-proclaimed “common sense” centrist Nassau County Congressman Tom Suozzi. In a divided primary field, you don’t need to convince a majority of the voters to cast their ballots for you; you just need more votes than anyone else.

Cuomo could be calculating his chance of — in a split election — scraping by with as little as 30% of the electorate. Or perhaps Cuomo thinks he could bypass the Democratic primary altogether and mount an independent challenge in November.  

On the other hand, Cuomo could just be exercising some of his legendary ego-driven vindictiveness by putting out a commercial that attacks his once-ally and now enemy Attorney General James, who “may have turned a blind eye to crucial details” of the case against him. Accusing James of ginning up a politicized witch hunt against her former benefactor may not hamper her chances at re-election, but it doesn’t enhance her media-burnished self-image as a fearless pursuer of truth in the model of her “unbought and unbossed” hero Shirley Chisholm. 

Writing in these pages a few days before his resignation, I suggested that then-governor Andrew Cuomo was working out the “Five Stages of Grief” before he would, inevitably, quit. I predicted that he would soon attain “acceptance,” and get to work on his redemption, which I figured would mean about eight months of introspection and penitence before he could “emerge from a PR chrysalis” into public view. 

Well, I overestimated by two months how long Andrew Cuomo’s ego could bear to be out of the limelight. Shame, reticence and humility were never part of the Cuomo playbook. Did you really think he was gone for good? 

Seth Barron is managing editor of The American Mind and author of the new book, “The Last Days of New York” (Humanix Books), out now.