FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 30, 2010
Contact: Robin Wolfgang
716-863-0806
mc@paladinoforthepeople.com
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CAPUTO
CAMPAIGN MANAGER, PALADINO FOR THE PEOPLE
The New York Post sent a photographer to the Buffalo home where Carl Paladino's 10-year-old daughter lives with her mother. This photographer attempted to take photos of the child through the windows and subsequently attempted to follow the girl to a playground.
We believe this conduct puts Carl Paladino's daughter in harm's way, susceptible to kidnapping or sexual predators. This behavior by The New York Post and their senior political editor Fred Dicker is unacceptable. Endangering the safety of a 10-year-old child is repugnant.
Carl Paladino is passionate about the need to clean up the mess in Albany. The only thing he is more passionate about is his family. Carl is deeply concerned about the privacy of his children and grandchildren. His concern is well founded: in April his corporate and campaign office was threatened with a bomb by a serial felon - this man is being prosecuted today.
Fred Dicker has demonstrated his bias in this campaign from the beginning. Veteran observers recall a similar bias during the campaigns that elected Eliot Spitzer and George Pataki.
On September 17th, Mr. Dicker wrote of Cuomo's "tax and spending cut plan," although Mr. Cuomo has proposed no tax cut and no spending cut. Rather, Andrew Cuomo proposes to "slow the rate of growth of taxes."
When Andrew Cuomo's campaign charged Carl Paladino with receiving millions of dollars in state leases, Mr. Dicker failed to note that Andrew Cuomo or his Democratic predecessor reviewed and approved all of Mr. Paladino's leases.
When Mr. Dicker attacked Paladino campaign chairwoman Nancy Naples, for awarding bond underwriting to an underwriter active in the Conservative Party, Mr. Dicker failed to note that the Comptroller who succeeded Nancy did the very same thing and Nancy was never accused of any improper conduct. And Mr. Dicker knew it, because I told him. He failed to write it because it didn't fit the Cuomo campaign plan.
Andrew Cuomo is on Fred Dicker's speed dial.
Sadly, while Fred Dicker may be on the payroll of The New York Post, his outrageous bias toward Mr. Cuomo is demonstrated again and again through his coverage of this campaign. Every political reporter and observer in the state knows his bias.
Carl Paladino has been repeatedly asked irrelevant questions regarding relationships he may have had while married. We challenge Fred Dicker to ask Andrew Cuomo this question on the record, since it has been posed repeatedly to Carl Paladino: "Did you engage in extramarital relationships while you were married?" A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.
Mr. Dicker will not ask this question of Cuomo, nor will Andrew Cuomo answer it.
Mr. Dicker gets extra Cuomo Brownie Points by claiming Carl threatened him. Carl has used this exact word choice throughout this campaign and several times on Mr. Dicker's radio show: he'll take out this government. He'll take out the bad guys. He'll take out Sheldon Silver.
Carl feels the same about Mr. Dicker, who is the best example of the cozy relationship some media have with the ruling elite. This is part of the problem in Albany, and Carl will take out the trash.
Mr. Dicker's real purpose in this charade is to help Andrew Cuomo avoid a public debate, where he might be forced to answer questions about his disastrous stewardship of the U.S. Department of Housing, where he's largely responsible for the sub prime mortgage crisis by requiring government agencies to purchase hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bad mortgages, costing U.S. taxpayers $2.4 trillion or why he has failed to prosecute Obama advisor and big Democratic fundraiser Steve Rattner for bribery, instead prosecuting the state official whose brother received the bribe, but not prosecuting Mr. Rattner, who made the $77,000 bribe in order to receive $75 million in state pension funds.
New York voters can judge Carl Paladino and Andrew Cuomo's relative fitness for the governorship only through such a debate. If Andrew Cuomo does not have the courage to debate his opponents, how can he have the courage to break the stranglehold of the special interests destroying this state?
Carl has returned to Buffalo to console his upset daughter. The Post photographers are gone. But will Mr. Dicker, who has no children, publish the photos? That is Carl's main concern.
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