Rick Lazio

NY Gubernatorial Nominee Carl Paladino: A Nightmare For The Republican Party! :(

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The year 2010 has been a weird year of political oddballs running for high office. But New York’s Republican nominee for Governor, Carl Paladino, may very well be the most outrageous, extremely weird candidate of them all! 🙁

Paladino defeated the mainstream Republican candidate, former Congressman Rick Lazio, in a hotly contested primary race in September, despite his record of being angry, nasty, confrontational, and defiant of party leaders and the news media!

Paladino has a child out of wedlock, but has claimed that his opponent, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, is of high sexual prowess and has cheated just as he did, without any evidence of such assertions being provided!

Paladino has sent emails that are racist, sexist, and pornographic, and does not apologize for them! 🙁

Paladino has threatened a journalist with bodily harm in a public confrontation, and has sent campaign literature imbued with the smell of rotten garbage!

Paladino is constantly combative with everyone he deals with, and has said that poor people should be housed in prisons that would be turned into work camps to train them in personal hygiene!

Meanwhile, Paladino pledges that he would cut Medicaid, which is the medical plan for the poor by $20 billion, as his first act as Governor!

Paladino is opposed to abortion in all cases except the life of the mother, which means he believes that women who are victims of rape or incest should have to go through the pregnancy!

He just condemned yesterday the whole gay rights movement, as he spoke before a group of Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn, New York, even though there has been a spate of anti gay violence recently in New York and nationwide!

Paladino also has made clear his desire to make life tough for those on welfare and unemployment compensation, as if those on these programs enjoy being in those unfortunate positions in a time of tremendous difficulty due to the Great Recession’s effects!

Paladino spent very little time in the military, but brags about his record as if he was General George Patton!

Paladino comes across as a nut, and as anti social, and the New York Republican Party would be facing a real rebel against their establishment, were he to be elected Governor, as he has made it clear he does not wish to cooperate with legislative leaders!

Thankfully, no poll shows him able to win the election, as it would be disastrous for the state, already enmeshed in a horrendous financial mess, to have to deal with such a maniacal personality!

This is another example of what the Tea Party Movement is all about, and hopefully, the American people will reject most, if not all, of these weird characters running to disrupt our system of government with their obstructionism! 🙁

We have many problems with government in this country, but we cannot afford to, as they say, “throw out the baby with the bath water!”

Andrew Cuomo Announces For NY Governorship: Harbinger Of The Future?

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New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the older son of three term Governor Mario Cuomo (1983-1995), announced his candidacy this morning for Governor at a time of great trouble and turmoil for the Empire State!

Cuomo has no opposition for his party’s nomination, but faces, if he wins, a daunting challenge financially, as the New York budgetary situation is one of the worst in the nation, and the state legislature is in stalemated condition, particularly in the State Senate, which has been an embarrassment to the state’s image.

But so has been the disaster represented by Eliot Spitzer, elected Governor from the position of Attorney General in 2006 by a landslide, and throwing it all away in a sex scandal within 15 months. Then, the Lieutenant Governor, David Paterson, succeeded and became embroiled in scandal and controversy of his own, and was forced out of consideration to run for a full term.

Meanwhile, Cuomo, formerly Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the second term of President Bill Clinton, made a distinguished record for himself as Attorney General, aggressively pursuing scandals on Wall Street and otherwise during this four year term. And he has indicated great plans to reorganize the state government bureaucracy in a way not seen since the Governorship of Alfred E. Smith in 1919!

Cuomo will face one of three opponents on the Republican line–former Suffolk Congressman Rick Lazio (who ran against Hillary Clinton for the Senate in 2000); Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy (who just switched parties to announce his candidacy); and Carl Paladino (a Buffalo property developer who advocates very conservative ideas after also switching parties a few years ago but has no political experience).

Cuomo is the heavy favorite to become the next Governor of New York, and IF he does a good job in a difficult time, and is reelected in 2014, he will likely be a possible candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016, although, of course, he would not now entertain such ideas! 🙂

So the 2010 New York Governorship race could be a harbinger of the future!

Time For NY Governor David Paterson To Bow Out Of 2010 Gubernatorial Race!

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NY Governor David Paterson has been a disaster area for most of the time since he succeeded disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008.

His poll ratings have been horrid, and a new advertising campaign has not helped one bit. He is 60 points behind Attorney General Andrew Coumo in a Democratic poll, and 20 points behind former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani in a matchup for the fall election less than a year from now.

Under the circumstances, it is time for Governor Paterson to announce his withdrawal from the race, to allow Attorney General Coumo to begin the campaign to keep the Democrats in control in Albany, as every polls shows him winning over Guiliani or even former Congressman Rick Lazio.

For the good of the Democratic party and New York, Governor Paterson needs to face reality and show some statesmanship and back Andrew Cuomo now, and insure the party’s future in a crucial race, in which both Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer will be on the ballot. Do the right thing now, Governor Paterson!

Governor David Paterson And Andrew Cuomo’s Future

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It is highly unfortunate that David Paterson, the Governor of New York by succession after the sudden resignation of Governor Eliot Spitzer due to a sex scandal, has tried to make his low popularity rating connected to the fact that he is African American.

This is a sign of his desperation as polls have indicated that he has an extremely low rating for his performance and his plans to run for reelection in 2010.

His attempt to appoint a Lieutenant Governor, Richard Ravitch, to be in line of succession, went against the NY State Constitution, and after just 43 days, a state court has ruled that the appointment was illegal under state law. It only adds to the sense of futility that this Governor can do anything correct or successful.

Every indication is that Paterson could not defeat a Republican opponent for Governor, were he to run for a full term. The hint is that former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani would be likely to run if Paterson is the nominee, and that Guiliani would defeat him easily. Even if former Congressman Rick Lazio (who lost the Senate race to Hillary Clinton in 2000) were his opponent, the indications are that Lazio would easily defeat Paterson.

Under the circumstances, the best result would be Paterson’s decision to decline to run for a full term, and there are hints that he is considering doing just that.

If Paterson does not voluntarily back down, it seems highly likely that he will lose the nomination for Governor to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, son of the former Governor Mario Cuomo. The Attorney General has established an outstanding record in his office, pursuing corporate corruption on Wall Street and showing evidence of his commitment to basic reform in many areas of public policy.

Cuomo has a background of having been Housing and Urban Development Secretary under President Clinton. Every poll makes it clear that he would win a landslide victory in a Democratic primary against Paterson, and would easily defeat either Guiliani or Lazio for the Governorship.

With him on the ticket, along with Senator Charles Schumer, it would also guarantee a victory for appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was a controversial appointee by Paterson to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. Despite a lot of opposition to her appointment, and the likelihood earlier of one or more members of the NY Congressional delegation challenging her in a primary, her switch from being a more conservative Democrat for her upstate district to adoption of more liberal positions on many issues has led to her being lucky enough to avoid a primary. But if Paterson was on the ticket as Governor, he would probably bring her down with him, so Cuomo guarantees a straight Democratic ticket at the top of the ballot, and the likelihood of legislative gains by the Democrats, who desperately need to gain a clear majority in the State Senate, which was subjected earlier this summer to total gridlock and deadlock for a month, presenting an image of total chaos and anarchy, and making NY state government appear to be one of the most dysfunctional in the country, no easy feat! LOL

To top it off, it can be expected that IF Andrew Cuomo is elected Governor of New York, we could easily put him on the long range list for possible nomination for President in 2016. By that date, he would be 59 years of age with a record of serving a President, and being Attorney General and Governor of the third largest state.

It is about time that New York recovered from what has been a disaster under Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, and that Andrew Cuomo be nominated and elected Governor, and restores the image and reputation that his father had as Governor from his election in 1982 to his retirement in 1994.