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!”