FINISH LINE: Andrew Cuomo closes out his campaign yesterday in New York City. (AP)
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A confident Andrew Cuomo swept confidently through “Carl Country” on the final day of the gubernatorial contest yesterday, as a somber-looking Carl Paladino invoked the pain of losing his son in a personal plea to voters.
The Democratic attorney general led rallies in Long Island City, Albany and Paladino’s hometown of Buffalo, where he focused little on his own race and tried to stir his party’s disillusioned base.
The statewide pep tour began in downtown Buffalo, a city that has remained strongly behind the Tea Party-backed Republican despite his statewide struggles.
“You tell me what happens tomorrow,” Cuomo told the Buffalo crowd, according to WBEN radio. “I will tell you the direction this nation takes with the US Congress. I will tell you what happens to President Obama’s agenda with that US Congress. I will tell you what direction this state heads over the next few years, and I will tell you the statement we make about the kind of people we are.”
The 11th-hour campaign swing appeared designed to emphasize the inevitability of Cuomo’s win in today’s statewide election.
It included a crowded rally in Albany, where his father, Mario Cuomo, presided as governor for three terms, and a boisterous gathering in Queens, not far from where the candidate grew up.
Several hundred students and supporters packed the atrium of La Guardia Community College in Long Island City to hear the would-be governor deliver what might be the last campaign speech of a lopsided but unusually personal campaign.
Cuomo took the stage to Bon Jovi’s “Work for the Working Man” and expressed relief to the crowd.
“It’s been a long campaign; I am ready for it to be over,” Cuomo said. “It is such an honor to be in my home county, where it all started, to be in Queens.”
The attorney general’s remarks centered on the tough election fights facing his would-be successor, Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), and the state’s congressional Democrats rather than his own campaign. He didn’t even refer to Paladino by name.
“Our opponent’s campaign has had one track all throughout,” Cuomo said. “Their pattern, my friends, is one of division. It is one of negativity. It’s always looking to divide New Yorkers.”
Public-opinion polls have for weeks shown Cuomo far ahead of the Buffalo real-estate mogul, a gap that only widened as Paladino became embroiled in one controversy after another. A Siena College survey released Sunday found Cuomo leading, 58 percent to 33 percent, among likely voters.
Republicans, however, expressed hope that bastions of loyal Paladino support upstate could help lift some local GOP candidates to victory.
Paladino spent the day tending to that base, leading five “mad as hell” rallies in western New York before ending the swing in Buffalo.
Paladino himself appeared somber and resigned as he expounded in a 13-minute campaign video on how the car-accident death of his 29-year-old son, Patrick, last year taught him the “fragility of life” and inspired his run for governor.
“I knew it was a very mischievous and not too endearing of an effort to do,” Paladino said. “But I figured I could do it because I had my son on my shoulder. With him, I could take on any challenge. Nothing could hurt me worse than losing my son. I took on the challenge.”
He offered no apologies for his controversial remarks on the stump, including threatening to clean up Albany “with a baseball bat.”
“You can call it anger if you want,” Paladino said. “I call it passion.”