“I will take you out.”
Surely that doesn’t sound like a hopeful future governor of New York. Anyone who has been told this knows that it is both unprofessional and disrespectful. Unbelievably, these words were repeated by the New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino toward a journalist.
As the New York gubernatorial race comes to a grand finale, the candidates have been chosen among the two major parties. Voters must now decide between the Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo and Paladino.
Paladino is, to put it simply, a dangerous man. He has turned accusations upside down by avoiding and deflecting them. For example, in an interview with New York Post reporter Fredric Dicker, he was asked about his alleged extramarital affairs. Instead of answering the question, he responded by firstly stating that he would “take [Dicker] out,” which obviously implied that he would do something violent to him.
He then unexpectedly turned the tables on Dicker, asking why Cuomo had not been asked the same questions. Paladino realized that he could not get out of the situation truthfully, so he decided to bring lies down upon his competition in order to escape. When confronted about that situation, he stated he was merely wondering why Cuomo had not been asked the same questions as he, not accusing him at all. In order to get out of a complex situation, he was willing to tell lies.
Not only does Paladino have a lying problem, but he also demonstrates an alarming lack of ethics on numerous occasions.
Recently, he was caught forwarding an e-mail with content that included extreme racism, graphic pornography and violence. When confronted, he wasted no time manipulating the situation and placing the blame on the Democratic party. After he had run out of ways to avoid the questions the reporters were badgering him with, he hopped in his car and drove off.
Not only does this display his surprising lack of concern with the shockingness of the situation, but it also makes one wonder the tricks Paladino would pull as the governor of New York, with even more power and reputation that he has now. It’s a scary thing to imagine a pathological liar like him in control of a state as powerful and significant as New York. He’s already begun to describe what he plans to change if he is elected. For example, he plans to crack down on the building of a mosque near the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
To him, the term Ground Zero signifies the area covered by the dust cloud from the resulting collapse of the buildings. The dust cloud, which he believes carried human remains, were thrown as far as a few miles away from the former site of the two towers. This place, he believes, should be treated respectfully. “I will use the site as a war memorial, and not a monument to those who attacked our country,” he said in a recent campaign video. It’s extremely disappointing that he feels no remorse by enforcing a dangerous stereotype of the Islamic religion.
Carl Paladino is, to put it simply, downright untrustworthy. His actions have spoken much louder than his words, and unfortunately for him, they have spoken in a negative way, reflecting on his racism, his lack of understanding and, especially, his frequent lying. As a candidate for New York governor, he possesses few good qualities to cement his position as a decent contender for the office. As a candidate, he completely fails to see the big picture. As a person, he is a truly forgettable figure, and a completely inappropriate candidate for governor.