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."
Paladino has threatened to spend $10 million of his own cash in the race, a factoid singled out by Cuomo when asked why he's raising so much money. But another source points out, "[Paladino]'s on the far right and will alienate minority voters with his talk of using prisons for welfare recipients, and will alienate women with his anti-abortion stance."
This past weekend, the Times Union's Casey Seiler wrote a column about Paladino and how his campaign has been informed by the death of his 29-year-old son, who was killed in a car crash last year: "The candidate has spoken openly of the tragedy and the profound effect it had on him -- including how it prompted him to come clean to his wife about an affair a decade earlier that had produced a daughter."
