This week, Tea Party-backed Buffalo politician Carl Paladino announced his candidacy for New York Governor, positioning himself as a Republican candidate who is “mad as hell” over the state of New York politics.
Paladino has received a lot of attention recently for making some, well, striking remarks, like when he said health care reform’s passage “will kill more Americans through deteriorating health care than were lost on 9/11.”
When Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) criticized him for the comment, Paladino wrote a letter in response: “I am not impressed that you kissed enough asses to chair a committee of politicians in the Congress.”
Despite his rather fierce opposition to Democrats, Paladino may not have the standing among conservatives to win a spot in the primary. For one thing, former Rep. Rick Lazio, a frontrunner for the Republican bid, refuses to acknowledge Paladino’s candidacy for fear of legitimizing him.
Paladino, who has pledged $10 million of his own money to his campaign, said in a video on his website that if he doesn’t get the “conservative party nod” he will “commit the resources necessary to create a Tea Party line on the general election ballot.”
Watch:
Though he considers himself “the only Republican in the race who agrees 100 percent with conservative values” and claims a strong anti-abortion, pro-gun rights, anti-same sex marriage platform, Paladino was a registered Democrat until 2005. He even donated to Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, according to the New York Times.
That has not stopped Paladino’s local Buffalo Tea Party movement from throwing its weight behind him.
According to The Buffalo News, a run for Governor “never entered his mind until he was approached a month ago by Rus Thompson and David DiPietro, two leaders of the local ‘tea party’ movement.”
Thompson, who attended a Paladino rally in full Revolutionary-era costume, has a website called “Fighting for our Freedom in Western New York,” and has launched a passionate campaign to eliminate tolls on the local Grand Island Bridge.
He said a Paladino nomination would be the “perfect” example of the Tea Party movement providing “some real serious competition for some congressional seats, some senate seats and assembly seats.”
For his part, Paladino said at one point that a “benevolent dictator” may be the only way to reform New York state politics.
Something to look forward to.
