<font size=”2″ style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;”><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>Straight talking nominee for governor of NY <a href=”http://paladinoforthepeople.com/”>(website)</a> has black race hustlers fit to be tied.</span><br /><br />Led by former state Comptroller Carl McCall and former city Comptroller Bill Thompson, a group of African-American Democratic leaders today called on state Republicans to insist GOP gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino put aside his incendiary and divisive rhetoric and “conduct a reasonable, civil campaign."<br /><br />“Republican leaders should call on him to do that, and if he doesn’t do it, they should abandon him,” McCall said at a press avail on the steps of City Hall.<br /><br />Told that former Gov. George Pataki had said this morning that he expects to support Paladino “on policy” now that he’s the GOP candidate, McCall commented, “I can’t talk for George Pataki, but, again, if they’re going to embrace him, they ought to get substantive conditions and run a reasonable campaign.”</font><br />
<div><font size=”2″ style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;”>With one speaker after another taking note of Paladino’s history of bullying and offensive rhetoric and conduct, McCall was asked if the group wasn’t “asking a skunk not to be a skunk.”<br /><br />“Maybe that’s not possible, but we are optimists,” shot back McCall, who was defeated by Pataki in the 2002 governor’s race.<br /><br />Thompson, last year’s losing Democratic mayoral candidate, remarked, “I’ve heard more violent talk from this candidate — about beating people up, about having them jailed and beating them on the way to jail — than I’ve heard in all my years in government…He’s shown up to this point he’s clearly unfit to be governor. I’m sorry, not unfit to be the governor — unfit to be in any elected office in this state.”<br /><br />Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries said that Paladino has said he would “bring a baseball bat with him to the Capitol,” then added, “That’s a scary thought. Carl Paladino doesn’t need a baseball bat; he needs anger management and an intervention.”<br /><br />And Bronx Assemblyman/Democratic chairman Carl Heastie said the last thing the troubled state needs is “someone who wants to govern by threatening, govern my stereotyping and governing by being a racist.”<br /><br />Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James added, "You should be afraid, very afraid. He would turn the clock back on women’s rights… He’d basically [put women [back in the kitchen.”<br /><br />Also contributing to the Paladino bashing, while ostensibly calling on him to run a reasonable campaign, were Manhattan Councilman Robert Jackson, Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams and Phil Banks, president of the 100 Black Men of America’s New York Chapter, who said he was attending as “a concerned citizen.”<br /><br />Others who signed on to a statement issued by the group could not attend, including state NAACP director Hazel Dukes. (Full statement below.)<br /><br />As to why the group felt it necessary to make the appeal to Paladino, while also shining a spotlight on his wacky and troubling history, Heastie may have given up the strategy underlying what the Democrats are up to.<br /><br />“Maybe it’s good for us as Democrats (that Paladino is the GOP candidate),” Heastie said. “Because we can really see what this guy would do if he became governor.”<br /><br />It also won’t hurt the cause of Albany Democratic candidates, particularly those in the Senate, where Democrats have a razor-thin majority, to wrap Paladino around the necks of their Republican rivals. Heastie conceded that Paladino could very well boost Democratic prospects.<br /><br /><br /><a href=”http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2010/09/black-leaders-attack-carl-pala.html”>Source</a></font><br /></div>