Paladino and Anger: How Much Is Too Much?

NYT Editorial: If He Can’t Take the Heat
Published: September 30, 2010
Copyright by The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/opinion/01fri2.html?th&emc=th


Carl Paladino, New York’s Republican candidate for governor, likes to portray himself as the political tough guy, the one, as he declared, who can “take a baseball bat to Albany.” Now it appears as though the man who so enjoys dishing it out can’t even take a tough grilling from an irritating reporter.

The latest outburst happened after Mr. Paladino complained that the news media is not investigating the private life of his opponent, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Mr. Paladino, who has acknowledged a daughter from an extramarital affair, suggested to Politico that Mr. Cuomo also had affairs before his divorce seven years ago.

Mr. Paladino did not give any evidence of his charges, and Fredric Dicker of The New York Post later pressed him for details. Their exchange quickly grew heated, and Mr. Paladino, who was apparently already upset about photographers outside his daughter’s house, threatened Mr. Dicker. “You send another goon to my daughter’s house and I’ll take you out, buddy,” he snarled. When Mr. Dicker asked how the candidate would “take me out,” Mr. Paladino said: “Watch!”

The Paladino campaign has tried to blame Mr. Dicker for this dispute. That misses the point, of course, since Mr. Dicker is not running for governor. And bullying, it is increasingly clear, is Mr. Paladino’s standard operating procedure.

This is the man who vowed to parade Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver around “in one of those Roman cages,” as he told Josh Robin on NY1 News, and agreed when a colleague called Mr. Silver the Antichrist and Hitler. In a CNN interview a week ago, he boasted that his campaign had “bloodied up” Mr. Cuomo’s “surrogates” and “sent them back in a package.” Of the State Legislature, he told The Buffalo News earlier this year, “I really want to wreck those people.”

New York State has serious problems. New Yorkers are right to be frustrated and angry about Albany’s corruption and ineptitude. The last thing this state needs is an out-of-control governor who can’t take the heat.







Paladino and Anger: How Much Is Too Much?
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/nyregion/01paladino.html?th&emc=th


Over the course of Carl P. Paladino’s improbable journey from Buffalo business executive to Republican nominee for governor of New York, his anger — at politicians, at taxes, at Manhattan traffic — has defined and sustained him, driving his challenge to the Albany powers-that-be and drawing beneath his banner New Yorkers who share his outrage.

But Mr. Paladino’s near-physical confrontation with a New York Post reporter on Wednesday night, along with his unsubstantiated assertions about the private life of his opponent, Andrew M. Cuomo, which he later retracted, have the political world grappling with this difficult question: In an election season defined by anger, how much is too much?

As a video of the confrontation ricocheted around the Internet and dominated cable news shows, those who watched it argued over whether Mr. Paladino had crossed a line or whether his plain-spoken fury, however undignified, was the perfect match for a restive electorate.

Nowhere was the debate more intense than among the fellow Republicans whose political fortunes are tied to Mr. Paladino’s in November. Already wrestling with how tightly to embrace Mr. Paladino, who is also the Tea Party-backed candidate, they found themselves newly divided, and some appeared to distance themselves from his behavior while clinging to his message.

Mr. Paladino refused to apologize for his eruption at the reporter, whom he blamed for sending photographers to take pictures of his 10-year-old daughter from an extramarital affair at her home. But he conceded in a television interview he had no evidence that Mr. Cuomo had been unfaithful during his marriage, which ended in divorce, and said he merely wanted reporters to scrutinize his rival’s personal life as closely as they had his own.

Still, his campaign released a blistering statement attacking the reporter, Fredric U. Dicker, and accusing The Post of harassing his family and skewing its coverage toward Mr. Cuomo, leaving his supporters to fret over whether Mr. Paladino’s reaction would overshadow what they believed was his appealing platform of steep cuts to taxes and spending.

“I think the campaign should be fought on issues,” said Michael Long, the chairman of the state Conservative Party, which endorsed Mr. Paladino for governor. “So I would hope it would stay that way.” Of the criticisms of Mr. Cuomo’s personal life, Mr. Long said, it was “not something I would do.”

Some Republicans found their doubts ripening overnight. In an interview earlier in the week, Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, said that Mr. Paladino “may be reading the public mood better than anyone.” But in a follow-up interview on Thursday, Mr. King expressed concern about Mr. Paladino’s behavior.

“I’m always skeptical and concerned when a candidate goes into his opponent’s personal life,” Mr. King said, declining to elaborate.

Mr. Paladino’s broader challenge echoes those of other Tea Party insurgents around the country, as passionate but untested candidates have toppled more-established Republicans in primaries only to struggle under the bright lights and scrutiny of general election campaigns.

In Nevada, Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator, has had difficulty explaining positions she took in the past, like calling for the phasing out of Social Security, and she sharply cut down on public appearances soon after her victory in June, at one point running away from a television reporter.

And in Delaware, the Republican Senate candidate, Christine O’Donnell, remains at open war with the local Republican Party, even as she seeks to address revelations about teenage experimentation with witchcraft and exaggerations on her résumé.

But even in a year when anger is the dominant theme of national politics, Mr. Paladino has stood out as a candidate defined by his ire. He has often promised to take a baseball bat with him to the State Capitol and referred to Albany denizens as leeches, pigs and wimps, and — in the case of Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the Assembly and an Orthodox Jew — as the Antichrist.

“His candidacy is a manifestation of a very real anger that exists in many parts of the state,” said John J. Faso, the Republican candidate for governor in 2006. “The risk for him is that when he’s being introduced and creating a first impression in the minds of voters, especially downstate, he’s got to be able to make a positive impression while still maintaining that edge he has.”’

In certain quarters, of course, Mr. Paladino’s invective has a ready audience. On Thursday morning, Bernard McGuirk, a talk-show host on WABC-AM in New York, described Mr. Paladino as “a breath of fresh air to a lot of us,” even as he gently questioned Mr. Paladino about his run-in with Mr. Dicker.

“I won’t play in their sandbox,” said Mr. Paladino, who was studiously calm but unrepentant. “I’m not politically correct, purposefully. These people are no good.”

Not everyone thought Mr. Paladino was the bad guy in the exchange. Some questioned whether Mr. Dicker, who repeatedly wagged his finger in Mr. Paladino’s face, had been overly aggressive. Even Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat, while saying that Mr. Paladino had responded inappropriately, said he sympathized with Mr. Paladino’s anguish about news media intrusion into his family life.

Col Allan, the editor of The Post, referring to Mr. Paladino’s accusation that the paper had sent photographers to his daughter’s house, said that while The Post had not published pictures it took of the girl, and did not intend to, “Mr. Paladino should not be surprised by the media’s interest in his families, as he has invited public scrutiny of his personal life by running for governor and speaking openly about his mistress and love child.”

Some Republicans were eager to avoid any discussion of the confrontation. A spokeswoman for Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Republican candidate for attorney general, declined to comment, and the party’s candidate for comptroller, Harry Wilson, said there were more important things to talk about.

Scott Reif, a spokesman for Republicans in the State Senate, said in a statement that Mr. Paladino was “running his own campaign, and we are focused on ours.”

“We completely agree with his calls to cut spending, reduce taxes and clean up Albany from the damage done by one-party Democrat rule,” Mr. Reif added.

Republicans were not the only ones talking about Mr. Paladino on Thursday. In an interview on NY1, Matilda Cuomo, Mr. Cuomo’s mother, dismissed Mr. Paladino’s insinuations about her son’s fidelity during his marriage to Kerry Kennedy as typical mudslinging.

“We know Andrew, and we know Kerry,” she said. “We love her, and we know this is all to be forgotten.”

Asked what will happen to New York if Mr. Paladino wins the election, she added, “I don’t even want to think about that.”


Raymond Hernandez contributed reporting.