New York’s Tea Party movement — which last fall helped drive the tax- protest defeat of two county executives — has been ga-ga of late over Buffalo millionaire developer Carl Paladino, who proposes to spend $10 million of his own money to run for governor this fall.
The movement had better reconsider — fast.
Because it turns out that the self-described “angry man” is something of a magnet for e-mails studded with hard-core pornography and vile racism — which he then passes along to a whole lot of others.
WNYmedia, an upstate leftist blog, reproduced eight of the e-mails, including one with a video of a woman engaged in bestiality and another, labeled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal,” that shows African tribesmen dancing.
One video, which showed a purported beauty queen having sex, was praised by Paladino as “a keeper.” Another, showing a woman engaged in oral sex, was labeled: “This is talent.”
Pretty classy, huh?
Um, no.
Sure, it’s hard to control an e-mail in-box. The “forward” button, on the other hand, doesn’t push itself.
Paladino sounds like a low-rent version of Eliot “Client 9” Spitzer.
And this isn’t the first embarrassment for Paladino, who formally launched his statehouse bid last week.
After he roundly denounced Gov. Paterson’s admitted infidelities as evidence of Albany corruption, it emerged that Paladino had himself fathered a daughter in an extramarital affair with one of his employees.
Late yesterday, Paladino’s campaign issued a statement denouncing disclosure of the e-mails as a “liberal Democrat blog smear.”
That is, it’s all somebody else’s fault.
And we thought Carl Paladino was supposed to be a stand-up guy.
Guess not.