ALBANY (AP) -- Rick Lazio, a former congressman, has the backing of just about every county Republican leader in his run to be New York's next governor. He's got the essential Conservative Party endorsement and already fended off two better-financed challengers at the Republican convention, one of whom was backed by the state chairman.
So why is he looking over his shoulder, when Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo is already plenty to worry about in front of him?
Carl Paladino.
The unconventional and politically uncouth Buffalo millionaire last week forced a Republican primary in September through the difficult petition route. Now, Paladino is steering the New York governor's race after being written off several times by Republican leaders. In the state convention in June, he had to resort to nominating himself because he said he was denied a chance to speak to delegates.
Now it's Paladino who is flooding talk radio with ads, saying he's "mad as hell." He says what many New Yorkers think: That the only promises politicians keep are those to special interests.
In a year in which all candidates want to look as mad as hell, it's Paladino who is firing up the rhetoric and making the other comments seem tepid by comparison.
Cuomo, during last week's campaign swing: "I've been watching government for a long time; I have never seen it as bad as it is today."
Lazio: "We need to develop new initiatives and ideas."
Paladino: "Plain Joe Citizens are sick and tired of footing the bill for higher taxes and the most extravagant spending to benefit an elite political class that is both incompetent and corrupt."
Last week, while Lazio tried to force Cuomo, the attorney general, to investigate how a $100 million mosque planned for a couple blocks from ground zero will be funded and Cuomo defended freedom of religion, Paladino said: "It's no different than Japan asking to build a memorial to kamikaze pilots next to the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor."
When viewed through the lens of traditional politics, Paladino shouldn't stand a chance to get the Republican nomination. He's not as experienced or polished as Lazio. The real estate developer has no experience in government or politics or in a major state campaign like Lazio, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate seat won by Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000. Even the $10 million Paladino pledged to use from his own fortune isn't much in a New York governor's race, although Paladino is close to billionaire B. Thomas Golisano, who spends freely on campaigns and likes to back mavericks.
But Paladino might have timing on his side.
An electorate angry at politics as usual blames politicians for the long recession. New York taxes are higher than ever while deficits are deeper. Unemployment is either a looming fear or devastating reality. Meanwhile, Albany's powerful special interests fought off layoffs and deep funding cuts.
These are the seeds that put hard-nosed Republican Chris Christie in the governor's office in New Jersey a year ago, and elected a professional wrestler as Minnesota's governor in 1998.
"It was like today," said Tom Hauser, author of "Inside the Ropes with Jesse Ventura," and a political reporter for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis. "I think this year is absolutely ripe for it, not just in Minnesota, but all over the country. Some of the same things you heard about trying to get rid of career politicians was the same thing Jesse Ventura ranted about in 1998."
In an interview last week, Paladino, a fit, low-keyed 63-year-old with the steely eyes of a bouncer on a Saturday night, took apart his younger rivals. Of Lazio: "He doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to confront these demons." Of Cuomo, the Democratic son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo: "Mr. Cuomo is going to be easier to beat than Lazio ... this guy has a freight train of stuff, the arrogance, this entitlement attitude."
A Siena College poll this month found Lazio remained the Republicans' favorite, 40 percent to 20 percent, but 40 percent of Republican voters were undecided. That survey was done before Paladino forced a primary with his petition of more than 25,000 Republican voters statewide.
"When you look at two factors like money - Paladino says he has a lot, Lazio we know does not - and you look at the likely electorate in this primary, I would have to say that Paladino has at least as good a chance at winning that primary as Lazio," said Steven Greenberg of the Siena poll.
A primary will likely draw more conservative Republicans with a drum beat by the fed-up members of the tea party movement, each of whom are Paladino's strongest constituencies.
Yet former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a moderate New York Republican who served 24 years in Congress, sees electoral weaknesses in what Paladino considers his strengths.
"I think there's a sort of inherent resentment of the big-bucks guy," Boehlert said in an interview. "Rick Lazio has the advantage of having been inside, but on the outside for many years. He knows how the inside works."
While Lazio is disciplined, reasonable and articulate, Paladino suffered early in his campaign when racy and racist e-mails he once forwarded were released, and when he said Obama's health care program would hurt and kill more people than the Sept. 11 attacks.
Boehlert doesn't see Paladino as another Christie.
"I'm skeptical," he said. "Most people figure this is a place for pros. We don't want a consummate insider, but we want someone who knows how it works."
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Michael Gormley is the Albany Capitol editor for The Associated Press and has covered New York politics for the AP for 10 years.
(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
