Paladino: NY'ers Are Fed Up With Government
NEW YORK (CBS 2/1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- The political establishment is on the run in New York.
Fed-up voters are doing a victory dance Wednesday and setting their sights on November after stunning primary results. It's a story of everyday people fighting back at the ballot box.
"New Yorkers are mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore," Carl Paladino said Tuesday night after winning the GOP nomination for the New York governor's race.
It was a wave of disgust with Albany that helped set the Empire State's political establishment on its ear, with primary results that sent messages to both Democrats and Republicans.
"There's a people's revolution. Everyday New Yorkers are just mad enough to force change at the ballot box. The people have had enough," Paladino said.
Paladino rode a wave of Tea Party support, swamping Republican Convention pick Rick Lazio. Leading by 29 points in a June poll, Lazio lost Tuesday by 25 points.
Paladino spoke with 1010 WINS Wednesday and said his primary victory was a message from New Yorkers that they weren't going to take politics as usual anymore.
LISTEN: 1010 WINS' Justin Schrager interviews Carl Paladino
LISTEN: 1010 WINS' Senior Correspondent Stan Brooks Reports
LISTEN: WCBS 880's Peter Haskell Reports
"The faces are different but the look is the same. There's no grounded government around them. They don't know what to tell their kids. They're fed up with it. They're fed up with government up in the air someplace headed for another planet," Paladino said.
Paladino warned his opponents and the Albany establishment that he was coming and that he was going to "take [them] down."
"People want change. They can't stand it anymore. It doesn't matter what the party label is. The people want change," Paladino told 1010 WINS, "it doesn't matter if it's upstate or downstate."
Paladino also called for 48 debates with Democratic opponent Andrew Cuomo over the next 48 days.
At the Republican State Convention last summer, Paladino mustered just 8-percent of the support of party stalwarts, but he used an insurgent candidacy to turn the tables on them, beating their hand-picked favorite -- Lazio.
It was his Albany smack down that did it.
"They say I'm an angry man, and that's true. We're all angry, not just because we woke on the wrong side of the bed. We're angry about paying the highest income taxes and property taxes in the nation and getting less and less for it," Paladino said.
Paladino will have both the Republican and Tea Party lines when he runs against the $24 million man, Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
In another election development, former Senator Al D'Amato, former Mayor Ed Koch and former State Comptroller Carl McCall issued an open letter to New Yorkers declaring Paladino unfit to be governor.
The letter accuses Paladino of practicing a destructive brand of politics. D'Amato says he understands voters are angry, but feels Paladino is over the top.
"He is dangerous, at the least, he is mean spirited and he tries to divide people." D'Amato told WCBS 880's Peter Haskell.
Paladino's campaign manager Michael Caputo said the three men are career politicians who only want to preserve their insider access.
"You would expect that kind of rhetoric from pigs whose heads are being pulled from the trough.," Caputo said.
Republican analyst and political strategist Mike Edelman said the primary sends a message to GOP power brokers who tried to derail Paladino.
"You're tone deaf. Pick candidates we can identify with, and pick candidates who are really going to change things – not candidates that simply say they're going to change things," Edelman said.
