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Paladino Aide Admits Carl Didn't Know When To Shut Up
By
Ben Yakas
Published Dec 2, 2010
Modified Dec 2, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Dec 2, 2010
Modified Dec 2, 2010
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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.
Caputo dissected Paladino's gubernatorial run at a campaign post-mortem hosted by the New School, along with aides from Cuomo and Rick Lazio's campaigns. He focused on two main points: that the media unfairly covered Paladino's campaign, and that Paladino had a big mouth that caused problems every which way it spit. "All of us on staff knew we had a tiger by the tail. And we knew that he had predisposition to speak his mind, whether it was appropriate at the moment or not," Caputo said, referring to several awkward incidents during the campaign. Caputo thinks the revelations about fathering a child with his mistress was no big deal, but he admits that the racially charged emails Paladino was fond of forwarding to friends were a blunder, and the impact was like "a bullet to the head."
Cuomo strategist Phil Singer told the crowd that their team prepared for either Paladino or Lazio over the summer, and ended up wanting to face Paladino for the very reasons Caputo believes undermined them: "We emphasized his extreme positions and viewpoints and unfitness for office. We eventually came to the conclusion...that Paladino would be a better candidate to motivate our voters." Wherever he is today, we hope Paladino is getting some much needed R&R...and hopefully Cuomo has called him back by now.
Tagged
andrew cuomo
carl paladino
governor
guberntorial campaign
rick lazio
turd in punchbowl
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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