One by one, each pledged fealty to the effort quickly emerging as the centerpiece of Mayor de Blasio’s first year in office — fulfilling his campaign promise to provide citywide prekindergarten classes, and to pay for them by taxing the rich.
But at nearly the exact same time, in a flag-draped room in Albany, the man who may control the fate of Mr. de Blasio’s plan, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, was trumpeting his own vow to lower taxes.
If there was any ambiguity to Mr. Cuomo’s message, it was cleared up by the slogan, in five-inch-high capital letters, that appeared on a sign beneath his seat. “Cutting Taxes,” it read.
The dueling news conferences, 150 miles apart, offered a vivid portrait of this year’s most intriguing political showdown: the upstart mayor and the up-for-re-election governor, Democratic colleagues and ostensible friends, who may end up on sharply different sides of the issue on which Mr. de Blasio has staked his young administration.
