ZING: Zephyr Teachout: My qualifications? I’m not under federal investigation.

Cuomo and his surrogates have attacked Teachout, a Fordham law school professor, and her runningmate, Columbia law school professor Tim Wu, for lacking the necessary qualifications to run the state. Cuomo on Sunday took direct aim at Wu by saying that experience matters for lieutenant governors.

“You need to know what you’re talking about to do the job, and experience matters,” Cuomo said. “People say, ‘I don’t have any experience but I could be lieutenant governor.’ I don’t have any experience but I think I could be a heart surgeon. Anyone here want to be my first patient?” I don’t want anyone experimenting with the lieutenant governorship of the State of New York.”

But Teachout, appearing on Albany radio Monday morning, said ethics also county.

“When people ask me why vote for you, what are your qualifications? One of them is that I’m not under federal investigation,” she said.

US Attorney Preet Bharara is probing whether Cuomo and his top aides improperly interfered with the governor’s anti-corruption commission and the details of its abrubt disbandment.

Ouch.

I said early on that a poor showing against Teachout would hurt Cuomo’s viability as a national candidate, and regardless of how Tuesday’s primary goes, I think he’s already made a poor showing as a campaigner. He’s looked thuggish but inept, and that’s got to hurt people’s assessment of his chances of future national office. And, of course, if he loses — or even if he wins in anything less than a blowout — that’s going to hurt, too.