Mario M. Cuomo delivered the perfect speech for a presidential candidate last night, but--to the disappointment of more than 800 onlookers--the New York governor failed yet again to declare his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Speaking at the Kennedy School of Government's ARCO Forum, Cuomo talked about the nation's economic problems and outlined a number of immediate and long-term solutions. Although his address focused on welfare, Cuomo touched on issues ranging from federal budget-balancing to the Gulf War.

At least 800 students, faculty members, local residents and journalists--many of whom were obviously hoping to see Cuomo throw his hat into the presidential ring--crowded into the Kennedy School and Science Center B, where the speech was televised live by closed circuit.

Cuomo urged American voters not to let the Republican party elevate welfare as a campaign issue.

"Making welfare the Willie Horton of the '92 campaign would...appeal to and feed a sad, corrosive instinct for negativism and divisiveness that challenges this exquisitely balanced democracy in a fundamental way," Cuomo said, referring to President Bush's 1988 campaign strategy.

Cuomo called such tactics "diversionary" and said the Republicans are trying to cover up the "political weaknesses" of the Bush and Reagan administrations.

"The powerful--instead of confessing error and pledging to correct it--are deflecting the blame from themselves to the powerless: to the poor, to the child who just had a child, to the new immigrants," he said. Cuomoalso urged his audience to take action in thecoming election and to leave "the legacy of theBush-Reagan era" behind.

Cuomo won a burst of applause--one of severalduring the speech--when he paraphrased the "newethic" which he accused the Republicans ofbringing to American government: "God helps thosewho God has helped...and if He left you out, whoare we to presume on His will?"

Cuomo continued his attack on the Bushadministration throughout his hour-long address,calling the president's latest economicinitiatives "monetary steroids" which maytemporarily arouse the economy but "will donothing to deal with the profound economicweakness that threatens our future."

Cuomo ridiculed Republican assertions that theUnited States government doesn't have the money tosupport welfare programs, calling the issues "amatter of priorities." He said welfare accountsfor less than one percent of the federal budget.

"When there's a disaster, you deal with it," hesaid. "Can you imagine if the president had saidto the American public last year, 'We've decidedit's important to send our young men and women tofight in Iraq, but we can't find the money forit'?"

Adversarial language notwithstanding, Cuomocalled for an economic program "built oninclusion, not exclusion," which would satisfyDemocrats and Republicans, poor and rich alike