Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino has bought Sheldon Silver a ticket to Washington DC in response to the assembly speaker’s suggestion that people leave New York if Paladino is elected.
Silver told The Jewish Week last week that while he was confident that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic nominee for governor would prevail, voters should “consider moving out of the state” if Paladino wins. Paladino posted a $75 Amtrak reservation in Silver’s name on his campaign Web site, charged to the Buffalo real estate developer’s American Express card. The date of departure is Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, the day after Election Day.
Since winning the GOP nod, Paladino has come under fire for comments he made nearly a year ago supporting Erie County Supervisor Chris Collins for calling Silver an “anti-Christ.”
Collins later apologized but Paladino told a town hall meeting in upstate Wheatfield “if anyone fits the bill of an anti-Christ or a Hitler it would be this guy,” according to the Nigara Gazette. He also said Silver “is probably the most corrupt and incompetent human being ever to serve in state government in the state of New York.”
Paladino in a meeting with conservative Orthodox Jews last week insisted the comments didn’t make him anti-Semitic. “I don’t have an anti-Semitic bone in my body,” he told the gathering.
With polls showing starkly different results in the election, Cuomo went on the offensive Tuesday, saying on Fox’s "Good Day New York" that Paladino wanted to run the state as what the Republian considers establish a "benevolent dictatorship," denying women the right to an abortion even in cases of rape or incest and putting welfare recipients in "work camps in retrofitted prisons."
"That’s not this state," said Cuomo.
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