After a week where everything in the gubernatorial race between Carl Paladino and Andrew Cuomo took a turn for the batshit-crazy, there's a palpable sense that everyone wants to leave the nuttiness behind, and get back to talking about some issues. Well, actually, maybe just Howie Hawkins wants to do that. "He's a straight and utter nut job. At some point, he'll accuse all of us of being from Mars," Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said of Paladino.

While speaking with Latino leaders on the LES yesterday afternoon, Cuomo discussed the bad vibes of the gubernatorial race: "These have been some truly negative, degrading comments and I have worked very hard not to go there...If [Paladino] wants to go there, he's going to go there alone." But then he let Diaz, and his predecessor Freddy Ferrer, do the bad talking for him during their endorsement announcement: Paladino "raises the bar" on the phrase, "You have to be a little crazy to be in politics," said Ferrer. Well, if Paladino can brazenely make allegations that Cuomo cheated on his ex-wife, then take it back admitting he has no evidence, we suppose Cuomo is allowed a moment of surrogate badmouthing. After all, everyone gets one, right Spiderman?

Oh, but about those aforementioned issues: Buffalo News has a breakdown of differences between the two pol's stated policies (with a particular focus on upstate NY politics). And both candidates took time out this week to lay out their economic policies, although Paladino, with his usual grace, was able to turn a dry policy discussion into an attack on Cuomo: “Hiring Andrew Cuomo to create jobs is like asking a ballet dancer to do brain surgery. Andrew Cuomo’s jobs plan is just more empty promises from another career politician who has never created a job in his life.”