The 2016 Democratic presidential race just began.

With his successful push to pass a same-gender marriage law, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo overnight became a national contender, putting down a major marker among the liberal party base that dominates the primaries.

�Most politicians, including most Democrats, have been afraid of this issue. Andrew is the first national figure ever to embrace it so enthusiastically,� said Richard Socarides, the president of Equality Matters and a former Clinton White House adviser. �Clearly, this establishes him as the most important progressive leader of our party, setting him up very well for 2016.�

Come 2016, �Cuomo is the only one who will be able to say �I delivered for you� before everyone else realized it was politically popular, and that will be an invaluable asset,� Socarides said, adding, �it also has the benefit of being true.�

Same-sex marriage opponents also framed New York�s arrival as the sixth state to legalize same-gender marriage in terms of perceived national ambitions for the governor who pushed the GOP-controlled state Senate to make it happen.

�The Republican Party has torn up its contract with the voters who trusted them in order to facilitate Andrew Cuomo�s bid to be president,� said National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown, in a statement Friday night attacking the vote.

The son of former three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo, Andrew�s story represents a remarkable political comeback, rising from a humiliating 2002 primary defeat in the New York governor�s race and a tough divorce from Kerry Kennedy to become a popular governor. Now, he�ll be surrounded by the presidential buzz that invariably attaches to big state governors.

Cuomo supporters already have fanned the flames privately of his prospects on the national stage: Rumors of his White House ambitions started circulating in New York even before he was elected last year by one of the largest margins in state history � some of them date to the days when he was managing his father�s own multiple flirtations with a national run.

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