| FWIW, the Post did run a story about Paladino's second family, without any photo of his daughter. And Dicker did not assign the story.
Saturday's event was the "Patriot Rally in the Glen," in Watkins Glen, Schuyler County. The local tea partiers promoted the event to other tea parties across the state, and got a pretty good crowd, mostly because Paladino would be there.
None of the media (so far) who covered the event have mentioned that Paladino introduced his daughter to the audience.
But a tea partier from Albany did:
He blunted the Democratic party attack regarding his 10 yr. old daughter (outside of marriage) by introducing her to the crowd, saying "this is my daughter," and expressing his love for her.
Of course, there is no "Democratic party attack regarding" the girl.
It is newsworthy when politicians or candidates have second families, especially when they hold themselves out as Religious Right conservatives (see former NY Rep. Vito Fossella).
But you won't see Democratic front-runner Andrew Cuomo doing an ad about that, or even mentioning it.
For most voters, Paladino's over-the-top rhetoric, exemplified this week by his threat to take Fred Dicker out and his baseless claim that Cuomo had cheated on his former wife, is the real problem with this tea party hero.
Before that, Paladino called former Republican Gov. George Pataki a "degenerate idiot," compared Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to the Antichrist and Hitler, and pledged to clean up Albany with a baseball bat.
At Saturday's rally, he said of Cuomo:
This election will destroy his political career. ... His knees are rattling. He's frightened to death.
Paladino gets lots of tea party props for his angry man shtick, but tea partiers are a micro-minority in NY.
And Paladino loses thousands of moderate voters every time he gives voice to his inner thug.
UPDATE: Albany tea partiers, no doubt encouraged indirectly by Roger Stone, will be demonstrating outside Fred Dicker's Albany home tomorrow. They even have a little website. That's really some crazy shit. |
