Things are heating up here in New York, and I'm not talking about the weather. New York's governor's race is getting hot, and the candidates are feeling the heat. While most polls have been showing the democratic candidate, Andrew Cuomo, in the lead by about 20 points, a recent poll put out by Quinnipiac University shows the republican candidate, Carl Paladino, only trailing by 6.
Coincidentally, at least according to the Cuomo campaign, the same week that these poll numbers came out the Cuomo campaign released its first direct attack ad on Paladino. The television ad, which can be viewed below, suggests that Paladino made several campaign contributions to elected officials in the past, which in turn earned him real estate deals.
The ad also says that one of Paladino's companies was granted $1.4 million worth of state tax breaks for a project intended to promote economic development and ended up creating only one job. Cuomo refers to Paladino as the "welfare king," and asserts that he is "part of the problem."
Paladino's campaign did not deny the allegations of the ad, but a Paladino spokesman believes it "illustrates Cuomo's misunderstanding of the business world." Attacking one's opponent is nothing new to the Paladino campaign. Paladino has openly called Cuomo "gutless," and his campaign is handing out "duck calls" to volunteers in efforts to get their supporters to attend Cuomo campaign events and disrupt them by "quacking."
October is shaping up to be a very interesting month for the governor's race in New York. Andrew Cuomo and Carl Paladino will spend the next month campaigning extremely hard. One can only hope that during that time New Yorkers will be exposed to information regarding where the candidates stand on the issues instead of being exposed to attack ads and horse race journalism.
