Then there is the Mad Tea Party's candidate for governor of New York who, in his reformist zeal, has said he will take a baseball bat to the state capital of Albany to break up the current system if he is elected.
Millionaire property magnate Carl Paladino's baseball bat reference is right in the ballpark. It symbolizes what he did in a televised confrontation with a reporter that emerged like a scene from The Sopranos. The reporter, it should be noted, was not from the hated New York Times. He was from the New York Post no less, a Rupert Murdoch publication.
Paladino had helped spawn an out of wedlock love child while living the outward life of a devoted family man and practicing Roman Catholic. Remember the howl over Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky? Are these same Clinton detractors coming forth to denounce Paladino? Once more there is that familiar stony silence of the selective morally outraged.
The reporter wanted to know about Paladino's proof over alleged marital indiscretions by his Democratic opponent Andrew Cuomo. When the reporter kept pressing his point Paladino threatened to "take him out." When he pressed further and asked Paladino what he meant, the response was another threat of keep up your actions and "you'll see."
Paladino has never come forth with a shred of proof to substantiate his charge against Cuomo. Meanwhile, however, he paid a visit to see some ultra conservative Hassidic Jewish believers to provide New York's voters with some more patented Paladino moralistic deliverance, this time on homosexuality.
It is one thing to weigh in on a topic. In this case Paladino, the man vowing to fix what ails New York state politics, shamelessly read from a prepared statement regarding the evils of homosexuality.
Later Paladino was asked to elaborate on the statement he read at the Hassidic gathering. He calmly stated that he had no problem with homosexuality as long as it did not relate to marriage laws. There was that harsh statement of a short time earlier but, then again, Paladino was engaged in a spontaneous reading exercise.
Such was another day from Paladino's busy schedule, the reformer who will fix things in Albany.
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