It’s hard to escape the feeling that a sense of desperation is settling in among two very different camps of political observers and voters. On one side, we have the Democrats, liberals, and progressives who desperately want to cling to power in Washington and push their agenda further forward. On the other are the never-Trumpers and the conservatives who may have loved Trump’s policies but also fret over questions regarding his electability and his irascible character. Both groups are watching as an increasingly doddering Biden stubbornly refuses to bow out while the shadow of an impeachment inquiry looms behind him. They see Donald Trump racing back and forth between campaign appearances and court hearings, while nothing anyone else says or does puts a dent in his poll numbers. And they’re all asking the same question. Is this it? This is who we’re running with… again?

Assuming you find this to be a problem (and to be clear, not all of us do), James Freeman, writing at the Wall Street Journal thinks he’s struck upon a solution. What we really need right now is… Andrew Cuomo. No, that wasn’t a typo. He appears to be serious. To be clear, he’s not saying that he wants Cuomo to be the President. But his theory is that if a “big fish” like Cuomo jumps in on the Democratic side, he could force a real primary to take place, drawing in more serious and potentially palatable candidates like Gavin Newsom or one of the other Democratic Governors or Senators. Then Biden could be removed from the ballot through the normal order of electoral proceedings. (He has nothing to offer in terms of what to do about Trump, apparently.)

Writing for the New York Post, Bob McManus is aghast at the idea, and for many good reasons. But at the same time, he seems to struggle to find a compelling argument that might offer a more plausible alternative. Still, he points out a number of serious flaws with the plan. And there are plenty of those to be found.

But here’s the question: if not Andrew, then who? In a party led by pygmies, the tall guy stands out, right?

But does that mean a 40-year career marked by duplicitous self-service, campaign-finance double-dealing, cascading policy disasters and all those tight hugs shouldn’t matter?

Sure, he presents better than New York’s incumbent governor — but that’s not hard and, anyway, he picked her in the first place.

Sure, he speaks in complete sentences, has an adult attention span and probably is still awake after 8 p.m.

McManus makes some good points about why Freeman’s idea might be useless at best and disastrous at worst. First of all, if there are potential Democratic contenders out there who are so gunshy that they would need Andrew Cuomo for cover before they enter the ring, would they be that much of an improvement over Biden? Also, Cuomo never does anything that doesn’t benefit Cuomo, so why would he agree unless he thought he might grab the brass ring himself? And then there is the darkest nightmare scenario of them all. What if Cuomo actually did somehow win the whole thing? Do you really want that guy in control of our nuclear weapons?

McManus also reminds us of Cuomo’s history and the huge targets he would have on his back in a national contest. Has our collective political memory actually grown so short that people are forgetting what an unmitigated disaster he was? Remember that Cuomo didn’t just “retire.” He was driven from office because he was facing multiple indictments involving credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault from women who became familiar with his “touchy-feely” habits. (The serious charges were eventually dropped.) If anyone was hoping to drag Trump’s history of allegations made against him by women into the debate, that would immediately be undermined.

In terms of Andrew Cuomo’s leadership skills, we eventually learned that his handling of the pandemic was horrendous, despite the media fawning over his “daily updates” as America’s shadow president. How many senior citizens did he wind up killing in the nursing homes when he forbade them from keeping out COVID-positive patients or even testing incoming seniors? And his lockdowns were as bad as any other Democratic governor’s.

And then there was all of the corruption and dodgy business dealings, particularly surrounding the “Buffalo Billion.” Cuomo somehow managed to avoid ever being indicted over it, but several of his top aides and major donors were. And some of them went to prison for considerable periods of time. Some Democrats are finally coming around to admitting that Joe Biden has a serious problem with all of the corruption allegations piling up against him. Do they really want to replace him with someone carrying their own massive baggage of that sort?

Thankfully, Cuomo himself has not yet so much as suggested that he’s considering entering the race. But given his personality, he would definitely be flattered if people began seriously asking him about it. At 65, Cuomo is no spring chicken, but he’s a babe in the woods compared to Biden and Trump. And in one of the few recent interviews I’ve seen him in, he still sounded relatively sharp and coherent. So could this really happen? God help us all. As for Trump, I’ve yet to see anyone with a plan to take the nomination away from him unless he takes himself out somehow. And the last polling I saw showed him leading Biden by two points, so let’s not all grow despondent or weak of heart, please.