Tales from the Trail

At their first debate on Monday, candidates for New York governor made the usual use of metaphor and cliche about the state’s economic woes.

But candidate Kristin Davis took it a step further when she compared the state bureaucracy to a badly run brothel, and New York politicians to whores.

And she would know.

Having been convicted for promoting prostitution, Davis, whose campaign logo is a red, white and blue Marijuana leaf, says former governor Eliot Spitzer’s downfall was over an escort in her employ.

Reading from a note pad, Davis first dealt with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), notorious for its bad books: “The key difference between the MTA and my former escort agency is that I operated one set of books and my former agency delivered on time and reliable service.”

“The MTA is a mismanaged patronage pit,” she added.

Later on, she targeted corrupt politicians: “Career politicians in Albany are the biggest whores in this state. I might be the only person sitting on this stage with the right experience to deal with them.”

New York voters are plenty angry. But apparently they’re not so comfortable with “scary-angry” and that could be costing Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino some support, The New York Times reports.

According to a New York Times poll released on the eve of their Monday night debate, Democrat Andrew Cuomo has opened a big lead over Paladino, 59 percent to 24 percent.

Fifty-nine percent of voters said Paladino did not have the right temperament and personality to be a good governor.  Fifty-five percent said the real estate developer who’s never held public office did not have the right kind of experience.

Carl Paladino, the Tea Party backed Republican candidate running for New York governor, says he is not against homosexuals, only gay marriage and taking children to gay pride parades.

News reports quoted Paladino, in remarks to Orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn on Sunday, saying: “I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t.”

The Buffalo businessman was on all the morning talk shows today responding to criticism over those comments. The campaign of his opponent, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, said the remarks displayed “a stunning homophobia and glaring disregard for basic equality.”

It’s more than a year away, but the White House is already making clear that President Barack Obama will not be on the sidelines of the 2010 elections.

Just about everything that happens in political Washington next year will have an eye toward November 2010 when all the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and some state governorships will be up for grabs.

Republicans will be hoping to break the Democratic triple crown in Washington — control of the House, Senate and White House (of course the White House is taken until 2012).