Weasel of the Week: Carl Paladino

The Republican candidate for Governor stuck his foot in his mouth with some insensitive remarks directed at gays earlier this week, and while Paladino has back-tracked, predictably, reports have surfaced linking Paladino as the owner of at least one or two buildings that had housed gay bars. Whether Paladino realized or not to whom he was renting the spaces, maybe he should've checked his records before giving the NYC tabloids plenty of front page fodder for a couple of days.

Not surprisingly, Paladino has been characterized by the media as being homophobic, and his remarks may in fact come back to haunt him in next month's general election, because he may have completely alienated a key voting bloc. It's not the sort of thing that the Tea Party wants to have to deal with as November 2 approaches, but then, for the GOP in general, if Paladino is the best they can offer to challenge Andrew Cuomo, well, they might as well gift-wrap the keys to the executive mansion.

Last I knew, the last Buffalo businessman who tried to run for Governor, Tom Golisano, didn't make this kind of noise, and didn't have to. Paladino, though, is giving Buffalo a worse name than the Bills are in the NFL. Who'da thunk that was possible?