Our favorite baseball bat-wielding, bestiality-forwarding, unrepentantly-inappropriate former gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, spent at least $7.7 million of his own money on his failed campaign to defeat Andrew Cuomo and his legendary prowess. Now, over a month removed from the histrionics of that campaign, he and his aides are taking stock of why Paladino's candidacy fell so short. And their answer seems to lie directly at the feet of Paladino: "I do believe Carl fell in love with the kerplunk of the turd in the punchbowl," said former campaign manager Michael Caputo. more ›

Rick Lazio, the bank executive and former Congressman who famously lost to Hillary Clinton in the 2000 Senate race, officially bowed out of the 2010 NY governor's race yesterday and lent no support for either remaining major party candidate, "I strongly believe that Andrew Cuomo cannot bring about change, but I remain unconvinced that Carl Paladino will bring the improvement that New Yorkers need, deserve and want." In other words, New York, you're still screwed! more ›

Rick Lazio, the mushy ex-Congressman, says he's stepping out of the race. Though Lazio won the NY State GOP's backing, he was blown away in the Republican primary by Tea Party-talkin' Carl Paladino. He did win the Conservative primary, and there was some talk that he'd stay in the race though it was suggested he'd "spoil" things for Paladino. A source told the Daily News that Lazio and Paladino spoke, "Carl wanted Rick's support, and Rick wanted Carl to stay focused on the issues about what's wrong with Albany and leave out the personal attacks." Good luck with that! more ›

Following up on Eliot Spitzer's comments last week about his aloofness in the gubernatorial race thus far, the NY Times criticizes Andrew Cuomo in an editorial this weekend for his above-it-all attitude: "Indeed, Mr. Cuomo is barely campaigning. He rarely grants on-the-record interviews...goes for days without a campaign event and leaves it to surrogates and commercials to criticize his opponent. The voters have noticed." more ›

What could make the NY State gubernatorial race better than having a matchup between frontrunner and Democratic establishment figure Andrew Cuomo versus intensely out-spoken Tea Party millionaire Carl Paladino? Why, having the rejected Republican candidate, Rick Lazio, stay on the Conservative Party line on the November ballot! A source tells the Daily News that Lazio feels there's "room for a moderate voice in a race when one candidate is a nut and the other is an Albany insider... It's such a bizarre year and such a bizarre time, and, let's face it, Carl Paladino is one sentence from dropping the N-word at any moment." more ›

Carl Paladino pulled off an upset victory over Rick Lazio in the GOP gubernatorial primary yesterday, and he's wasting no time moving forward with his campaign against his main opponent, current Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. "Carl's whole life is an open book to the people of New York, and Cuomo is clearly frightened of his own life and failed career being under the spotlight with us. We have a message for Andrew Cuomo: You can run but you can't hide. Prepare for a full and complete vetting. Your time has come," said his campaign manager, Michael Caputo. more ›

Last night, Carl Paladino trounced Rick Lazio to win the Republican gubernatorial primary in a big upset. State Senator Eric Schneiderman won the Democratic Attorney General primary. Rep. Charles Rangel and Rep. Carolyn Maloney both fought off challengers and won their Democratic House primaries. And, in another (happy) surprise, State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. conceded to Gustavo Rivera. more ›

If you're a registered Democrat or Republican, you can vote in tomorrow's primary. Besides getting a chance to participate in the democratic (small d) process, you'll also get a chance to come face-to-face with one of the new voting machines—no more old-fashioned lever machines, it's now time for newfangled scanners (time for our own Lizard People vote?). more ›

Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is a true wild card; he's filthy rich, and one never knows what antic he'll pull next. Forwarding bestiality videos, calling Gov. Paterson a "drug addict," sending a duck to stalk Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, it's all just Carl being Carl. For his latest antic, Paladino is mailing out campaign brochures highlighting the corruption in Albany...all in vivid Smell-O-Vision. more ›

The Daily News decided to skip endorsing a candidate for governor ahead of next month's Repubican primary and went straight to endorsing Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate, for the job: "There is no point in taking further stock of the candidates vying for the Republican nomination in next month's primary. Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino have been that awful... New Yorkers deserve a return to the Executive Mansion of a governor with the fiber to hold to fundamental principles. That is not Lazio. A former Long Island congressman, he was handily defeated for Senate by Hillary Clinton in 2000. He wanted a comeback but drew scant enthusiasm from party leaders and is running scared against [Carl] Paladino, an upstate real estate developer whose proposals range from ill-informed to illegal." more ›

On September 14, one of the many primary elections will be the Republican primary battle for governor between former Congressman Rick Lazio and Buffalo developer and Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino. And while Lazio has the backing of the state GOP, apparently Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo would rather face Paladino. Why? A Cuomo source told the Post, "Paladino flunks the threshold test of credibility and will drive many traditional Republican voters to Andrew; that's the bottom line." more ›

Rick Lazio, Republican candidate for governor who is trailing in the polls and low on campaign cash, has been extremely vocal in his opposition to the Park 51 community center and mosque planned two blocks from the World Trade Center site. In fact, he recently released a nearly two-minute video (see below) offering anti-mosque opinions from people filmed downtown. But his use of images from the attack-ravaged Ground Zero has pissed off the Uniformed Fire Officers Association and Sergeants Benevolent Association. more ›

President Obama has finally weighed in on the most important issue of the summer—the mosque proposed at 45-47 Park Place, two blocks away from the World Trade Center Site. At a White House Ramadan event, Obama supported the plans for the mosque, "Muslims have the right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," pointing out that it passed city planning laws and emphasized the founding tenets of the U.S. of A. Here's an excerpt of his speech (video below; full text after the jump): more ›

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio has stopped talking about the mosque for a second and is now drawing attention to his Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo's attendance at Rep. Charles Rangel's birthday party at the Plaza Hotel. Lazio's campaign website says, "Last night, Andrew Cuomo toasted Charlie Rangel, a dear friend and colleague in New York's Special Interest Government at the opulent Plaza Hotel..." more ›

In the twilight of his governorship, Governor Paterson is feeling pretty honest. He said during a radio interview that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic nominee for Governor and front-runner, would have bested him if they met in a September match-up, "His record has been so stellar in the last four years that it would have been very difficult for me to beat him in a primary. He's right there on the major issues that we need to be talking about." more ›

Last week, Carl Paladino said that if he didn't win the Republican gubernatorial primary, he wouldn't run in the general election, "If we don't win the Republican primary, we're going to be gone at that point, because we're not going to be a spoiler to someone running against Andrew Cuomo and taking him down." But, hey, you don't get to be a millionaire developer who loves forwarding bestiality videos without changing your mind, because now he says he'd love to spoil things! more ›

Buffalo real estate developer Carl Paladino, the Tea Party favorite, will be challenging Rick Lazio in the Republican gubernatorial primary this fall, and a new Quinnipiac suggests that his appeal is growing. Well: Lazio will leads 39% to Paladino's 23% (with 33% undecided), but that's up from a June 22 poll that had Lazio leading 46% to Paladino's 17%. So maybe that's why Lazio changed his campaign manager today? more ›

Right-wing politicians just loooove their Ground Zero mosque! (And by "Ground Zero mosque" we mean the "multi-use complex with a space set aside for prayer two blocks from the World Trade Center site.") Republican gubernatorial wannabe Rick Lazio may be down in the polls, and his fund-raising may, as Clyde Haberman puts it, "make anemia look robust," but he knows this mosque controversy is his ace in the hole. more ›

This should be fun: Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Lazio is not contesting millionaire developer Carl Paladino's petition to be in the fall GOP primary. According to the AP, "The deadline to contest thousands of signatures on Paladino's petition to get on the Sept. 14 ballot expired at midnight Monday. State Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin said Tuesday that no objection to the petition has been filed." more ›

Last week, Democrat Andrew Cuomo announced he had nearly $24 million in the bank for his gubernatorial campaign. This number was especially astonishing given that the Republican nominee, Rick Lazio, had less than $700,000 in the bank (his team emphasized Lazio had raised $3 million overall). So why does Cuomo need so much money? Yesterday, the Attorney General explained it was all because of Carl Paladino. more ›

It looked like a landmark hearing, it smelled like landmark hearing, and for the first few minutes, it even sounded like a landmark hearing. But this discussion wasn't really about whether 45-47 Park Place should be a landmark, and, as expected, the hearing quickly degenerated into something much more familiar—an impassioned protest against the mosque and community center that would replace 45-47 if it's not declared a landmark. To set the tone, cries of "you're full of it," "liar," and "murderer" were thrown at Sharif El-Gamal, who owns the property and wants to build the mosque, when he stated, "I care a lot about our future as a city," more ›

Earlier this week, Republican gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. Congressman Rick Lazio called upon Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (who, coincidentally, is also running for governor!) to investigate the funding sources for the proposed mosque near the WTC site. Cuomo dismissed Lazio's opposition to the mosque as Islamophobia, which only inspired Lazio to push back hard during a TV interview: more ›

Last night the landmarks committee on Manhattan's Community Board 1 voted against recommending landmark status for the old Burlington Coat Factory building at 45-47 Park Place. This address is where Cordoba House is planning to build a mosque and community center, a project that has some people up in arms because it would be two blocks from the WTC site. It's unclear how many blocks away the mosque would need to be to appease the opposition, but last night the plan won a key victory from CB1, and on Tuesday it faces the final hurdle at a Landmarks Commission hearing about the building. more ›

Looks like NY State Republican chair Ed Cox's plan to have Democrat-turned-Republican Steve Levy run for Governor (foiled, by the nomination of Rick Lazio) has angered national Republican Chairman Michael Steele. The Daily News reports, "The National GOP is funneling cash for local elections directly to county leaders - a step never before taken in New York," which is a "clear snub" and a "direct slap at Cox." Cox admitted he was surprised, but told the News that he and Steele "spent a very warm six hours" together last week, "[Steele] put his arm around me in a very warm way and told me now that the convention was over he was looking forward to us working together." more ›

You really can't keep a kook out of the kitchen: Republican Carl Paladino might have been stung by his poor showing at the GOP convention earlier this week, but he has no interest in giving up the desperate good fight. The real estate mogul-offensive email connoisseur vowed to gather the 15,000 signatures needed to challenge Rick Lazio in a Republican primary. "Today the real fight for reform begins...I'm the only Republican who should be the next governor of New York. And I intend to be," he said, with Ahab-like intensity. more ›

Yesterday, the NY State Republican Party nominated Rick Lazio to face off against Andrew Cuomo in this fall's race for the governor. However, it seems the process has caused problems for the GOP, vs. the Democrats. The Post reports one consultant as saying, "This whole thing was a disaster. Politically, it was a disaster. Organizationally, it was a disaster. It was a train wreck." more ›

Today, the Republican Party formally selected Rick Lazio as its preferred candidate for Governor in this fall's election. Lazio won nearly 60 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting at the convention, while opponent and former Democrat Steve Levy received only 28 percent, meaning he won't be able to run in a primary. Lazio will likely face a primary battle versus Tea Party-favorite Carl Paladino, who said he was also considering forming his own party. more ›

The NY State Republican Party will be endorsing a candidate for governor today, but with a crowded field of candidates and their supporters sniping at each other, here's how the scene at the convention—which is being held at a Sheraton in Midtown—is described: more ›

The NY State Republican Party's convention begins today, and four men—Suffolk County Executive and former Democrat Steve Levy, former Congressman and one-time Senate candidate Rick Lazio, real estate entrepreneur Myers Mermel, and Buffalo real estate millionaire Carl Paladino— are hoping for the nomination to challenge Andrew Cuomo for the governor's seat this November. But the crowded field means one thing: Chaos. The Post says—in a story headlined "GOP rift over who'll be Cuo-mowed down"—a "prominent statewide GOP official said, "This is an insider fight within our party over leadership and control, and we all recognize that it has nothing to do with the outcome of the November election." more ›

Rick Lazio won the Conservative Party's endorsement for governor yesterday. However, NY1 reports, "Lazio only got about 54 percent of the vote, just barely above the threshold needed to get on the ballot. A dissenting Conservative Party member got about 36 percent, setting up the possibility of a Conservative Party primary for governor this fall." more ›