A hot-off-the-presses new Siena poll shows Andrew Cuomo leading Carl Paladino in the upcoming gubernatorial race by a whopping 33 points. But wait a minute—yesterday's Quinnipiac poll told us that Paladino was only 6 points behind. This is completely contradictory! Maybe Camus was right: only once we accept that the world is devoid of any fundamental absolutes can we truly be free.
According to today's poll, Cuomo leads Paladino by a 57 to 24 percent margin, with Rick Lazio trailing behind at 8 percent. Quinnipiac's survey only took into account likely voters, as opposed to Siena who polled all registered voters. But despite the latest poll, yesterday's poll was damaging to the public perception of Cuomo, and how he's run his campaign thus far.
The Times declared that his "unstoppable" image suffered a severe blow, while Democrats are now calling for Cuomo to pursue a more aggressive campaign strategy: "Cuomo should engage him directly on the issues and show that Paladino is only an inch deep in his understanding of how to turn government around. They expected Paladino to self-destruct, and he's not going to. He's just going to become more and more of a people's champion," said Michael Benjamin, a retiring Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx.
Even Cuomo sounded frustrated at an event yesterday where Mayor Bloomberg gave him his endorsement: “We’re all angry! O.K. What do you want to do? We can have an anger party, celebrate our anger. Or we can say let’s take that anger, let’s take the energy, let’s focus it and actually do something to correct the problem.”
If anything, yesterday's poll makes Paladino seem like more of a legitimate contender, and it's given him the cojones to step up his game and focus on more public-policy issues. But he won't stop slinging mud: “This game is not played in short pants. We will keep popping smoke and dropping it in his hole until he comes out. The only question is: How much will he be coughing when he emerges?” Paladino attack dog campaign manager Michael Caputo told City Hall Daily.
