Yet in another odd turn, he described the virus as “a metaphor” for a body politic that had been weakened by division. Viruses have always been handy metaphors, but this one has literally killed more than 170,000 Americans.

Cuomo does have a good story to tell about New York’s stabilization and recovery—health-wise, if not yet economically—over the past few months. But can a finally flattened curve really count as a success when the initial spike was so severe, so deadly, and so preventable? The governor would say yes: He’s routinely deflected questions about what he could have done differently and skirted blame for New York’s nursing-home tragedy.

Biden and the Democratic Party, too, have chosen to look only at Cuomo’s triumphs rather than his failures. Between the early surge in the Northeast and the summer wave everywhere else, there’s nary an American leader they could summon who doesn’t have a checkered record on COVID-19. Democrats were looking for pandemic heroes to feature tonight—doctors, nurses, businessmen and -women, and even political leaders. In the legend of Andrew Cuomo, however, they settled for something of a myth.