NY Candidate for Governor with Foot-in-Mouth Disorder

[The Pecman]

I've been following the NY governor's race, and it just gets stranger and stranger. Anybody living in that area should think long and hard before casting a vote for this idiot Paladino...

Paladino's Gay Issues Hounds NY Governor Campaign

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino rails against gay marriage and called the bumping-and-griding at gay pride parades disgusting. He also once was the landlord for two gay clubs in Buffalo.

The real estate deal, first reported Wednesday by the New York Daily News, left Democrats calling him a hypocrite. Paladino's campaign said it proved that he supports gay rights, just not gay marriage. Meanwhile, a rabbi who represents an umbrella organization of ultra-Orthodox clerics said he was dropping his endorsement of Paladino because the candidate had apologized for the harsh wording of some of his comments about gays.

Paladino's campaign has acknowledged recent mistakes have hurt his campaign, which is trying to overcome Democrat Andrew Cuomo's double-digit lead in the polls. The Republican's poll numbers had been slipping since late September, when he was caught on video loudly arguing with a reporter over Paladino's unsubstantiated claim that Cuomo had extramarital affairs.

The latest conflict began Sunday night, when Paladino told Orthodox Jewish leaders in New York that he opposes gay marriage and doesn't want children being "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option." He also told the rabbis, "That's not how God created us, and that's not the example that we should be showing our children."

The next day, he said he was referring only to his opposition to gay marriage, then added that young children shouldn't be exposed to homosexuality, especially at gay pride parades.

On Tuesday, Paladino apologized for using harsh words, such as "brainwashed," but not his opposition to gay marriage.

"I sincerely apologize for any comment that may have offended the gay and lesbian community or their family members. Any reference to branding an entire community based on a small representation of them is wrong," he said in a statement. "The portrayal of me as anti-gay is inconsistent with my lifelong beliefs and actions and my prior history as a father, employer and friend to many in the gay and lesbian community."

That apology lost Paladino an endorsement Wednesday. Orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin, one of his hosts on Sunday, withdrew his support and accused Paladino of bowing to political pressure. Levin says he was told by the campaign that Paladino apologized at the urging of family members, because his nephew is gay.

Paladino spokesman Michael Caputo told The Associated Press that the rabbi and Paladino "agree on many things and disagree on some, too. He's entitled to his opinion."

Being a landlord to two gay clubs in Buffalo "was a clear example of how Carl Paladino doesn't discriminate against the gay community in business," Caputo said. "Carl not only rented to the clubs - he had a good working relationship with them throughout their tenancy."

Cuomo wouldn't comment. Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, head of the party's state committee, said Paladino's "extremism is outdone only by his hypocrisy."

Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long, who is critical to Paladino's chances for winning Nov. 2, said Paladino had better get back to his primary message of cutting taxes and state spending.

As for the leases with gay clubs, Long says it shows "he has no prejudices."

"He is not a slick politician," Long said of Paladino, his party's nominee. "He may at times be somewhat gruff, but anything I saw - and I watched all his interviews - I didn't see any meanness."

The New York Post reported a brief interview with Paladino's gay nephew, Jeff Hannon, saying, "Obviously, I'm very offended by his comments." He declined further comment. The nephew continues to work on the campaign, Caputo said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/13/...in6953265.shtml

[The Pecman]

And this news story on CBS News shows Paladino in his own words saying why he thinks Homosexuality is a bad option for families:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=694...tag=mncol;lst;1

Sirius Radio shock jock Howard Stern has been railing against Paladino for several weeks now, and I'm glad that he's had the guts to take a stand on this and show people what an idiot this conservative candidate is. Note that Paladino fathered an out-of-wedlock child 10 years ago and never bothered to tell his wife of over 20 years about it (though he did tell his "legit" children).

What a total jerk...

[JamesSavik]

Sometimes I wonder if it is a requirement that all potential republican candidates be homophobic douche bags.

[The Pecman]

What really appalls me is that Palladino is off on this morality kick, telling selective groups (like the Orthodox Jewish group to whom he gave the original speech) that gays shouldn't be able to raise children, that kids shouldn't be taught that being gay is a "legitimate" lifestyle, and that he's more "moral" than the other candidate.

I hate this kind of hypocritical bullshit almost as much as I hate bigotry. Plus now, he's desperately trying to back pedal and is saying, "oh, somebody just shoved this speech into my hand and I read it without really having seen it before." A-hole...

[E.J.]

you left out most of his opening lines:

We must stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives. I didn?t march in the gay parade this year, the Gay Pride parade this year. My opponent did. And that?s not the example we should be showing our children, and certainly not in our schools.

And don?t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie. My approach is live and let live. I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful in getting married and raising a family. And I don?t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn?t.

Do people really say "dastardly" anymore?

A couple of quotes from the N.Y. Daily News and the N.Y. Post (so consider the source)

Carl Paladino's openly gay nephew -- whom the candidate points to as proof he's no homophobe -- said yesterday he was "very offended" by his uncle's anti-gay rants.

Jeff Hannon, 23, a staffer for the Paladino campaign, also hasn't shown up at work since the bomb-throwing GOP gubernatorial hopeful made his caustic comments about homosexuality, one of Hannon's co-workers told The Post.

About the gay club

Carl Paladino jumped to his son's defense on Wednesday, denying his son drove out homosexual employees when switching a Buffalo nightclub from gay to straight.

Paladino reacted to a story in Wednesday's Daily News that said William Paladino ran Cobalt, a gay bar that later became Tantra, a straight bar.

A former Cobalt bartender told The News that of the 10 bartenders there, only the three straight ones were kept on when the switch occurred.

A summary at Box Turtle Bulletin HERE

[The Pecman]

One of the people at the orthodox temple recorded Paladino's speech, and Howard Stern went out of his way to play those clips. Howard basically said, "is this guy out of his mind? There's hundreds of thousands of gay people in NY state, plus even more people that will find his entire speech offensive. With luck, this will cost him the election." (Or words to that effect.)

Paladino wants to "live and let live," except when it comes to gay children, or children whose parents are gay. F-in' moron... The guy's a thug of the worst kind.

Do a Google search for "gay Paladino," and you'll find four million hits on this clown, almost all of it negative.