Tea Party Candidate With Racist Past GOP Choice For New York Governor
Really?
New York Republicans today voted in Carl P. Paladino as their nominee for governor. He defeated former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio.
I've already mentioned Paladino's campaign pledge to send welfare recipients to jail (voluntarily, of course) to take "personal hygiene lessons."
But to see how far off the deep end the GOP's candidate for governor is you need to read his racist e-mails. The New York Times reports:
ALBANY — Carl P. Paladino, a Republican candidate for governor from Buffalo, drew fire on Monday for racist and sexually explicit e-mail messages that a left-leaning Web site claimed he had sent to friends and business associates in recent years.
The messages, which were published on WNYMedia.net, a Web site devoted to politics in western New York, included pornographic images and what appeared to be a video of Africans dancing in traditional dress that was titled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal.”
Another, a picture of a cargo plane crashing into the ground behind a group of black people, was prominently captioned with a common racial epithet for African-Americans.
The messages all appeared to have been sent from Mr. Paladino’s account at Ellicott Development, the Buffalo real estate company that has helped make him a multimillionaire.Paladino has since admitted he sent the e-mails saying he simply thought they were humorous. No surprise that Paladino was the Tea Party favorite in this race. The Tea Party movement has become well known for the racism in their ranks.
The Republican state party that has given us great Americans like Nelson Rockefeller has now become the party of Carl P. Paladino. Rockefeller, who served as New York Governor and later as vice-president of the United States, was a supporter of civil rights and racial reconciliation.
This kind of extremism coming from the GOP isn't good for New York or the United States.
Thankfully, New York State has a good and decent person to vote for this November: Andrew Cuomo, the former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton Administration.
