Gun Politics New York

Alec Baldwin is supporting Eric Schneiderman:

“… “In addition to his prolific career in film, television, and on stage, [Baldwin is] actively involved in environmental advocacy, animal rights, gun control issues, and support for campaign finance reform. Baldwin cited Schneiderman’s independence and dedication to these issues in making his endorsement,” the campaign said …”

Nobody gives a shit what Alec Baldwin thinks.  It’s that simple.  His endorsement is worth, at best, one vote, his own.

Rick Lazio is not challenging Carl Paladino’s petitions so there will be a Republican primary on Sept. 14.  That’s a bit surprising since petitions gathered by challengers running against candidates blessed by the political machine are routinely challenged on any and all grounds.

Latest polling shows Kathleen Rice is far ahead of the pack in the race for the Democrat nomination for state Attorney General.  As long as Eric Schneiderman loses that’s all that matters.

Rick Lazio has less than $700K in campaign account.  For a statewide candidate that’s pathetic.  On the positive side with no money he won’t be inundating the airwaves with annoying ads for the next couple of months until primary day.

Here is a good quote from Carl Paladino’s campaign which sums things up nicely:

“… “He can’t raise money, he has no message, his campaign is in disarray and it’s time for him to take a second look,” Paladino campaign manager Michael Caputo said of Lazio …”

All of which happens to be true.  Lazio is a joke and has been from the start.  There is no way the Republicans cannot have noticed this.  According to Fred Dicker they haven’t:

“… Many GOP insiders predict the hard-driving Paladino, who promises to spend $10 million of his own money and has strong ties to the highly motivated Tea Party movement, can beat Lazio in the primary …”

Andrew Cuomo is now even publicly entertaining the possibility Paladino will be his opponent as reporter Jimmy Vielkind notes over at CapCon:

“… “Jimmy, one of the opponents is a multi-millionaire who has said he can put his hand in his own pocket and spend millions of dollars,” Cuomo said … It’s interesting to me that Cuomo is now acknowledging Paladino may be his opponent in a general election …”

If they were smart, which is a very big if, the establishment Republicans would take a good hard look at the way Paladino is running his campaign.  Sure, he’s rough around the edges and no, he won’t appeal to all people, but at least he takes positions on issues and tries to organize people around them.  All Lazio seems to do is attack Cuomo.  I do not see him giving anybody a reason to vote for him.

Carl Paladino gathered 28,000+ signatures which, assuming they withstand the inevitable court challenges, is enough to put him on the GOP primary ballot against Rick Lazio.  Lazio meanwhile is late in filing his July campaign disclosure report.  This race is starting to remind me of 1990 when the GOP put up Pierre Rinfret.

All five Democrat candidates for state AG have plenty of cash on hand which should ensure a nasty primary where they try to kill each other off.  If Eric Schneiderman goes down in the fight I’ll be happy.