Playing a recording of Rick Lazio and Andrew Cuomo palling around while discussing each other’s housing policy, bomb-throwing Republican Carl Paladino announced this morning he would petition his way onto the ballot for governor.
The announcement by the Buffalo real estate tycoon comes less than a day after state Republicans designated Lazio, a former Long Island congressman, to take on the popular Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
Paladino, who had earlier pledged to spend up to $10 million of his own money on the governor’s race, said he expects the statewide petition drive will cost half a million dollars. Lazio’s campaign, by contrast, had only $647,000 on hand in January and has since lost valuable fundraising time to an intraparty ballot fight with Suffolk County Steve Levy.
Paladino said he would first attempt to get on the Republican line. If that fails, he said he would a create a third party line to galvanize tea party support.
Before making his announcement, Paladino played a recording of a 2004 interview on a Westchester County radio station in which the two men – then both out of office – praised each other’s work on housing issues.
Lazio has criticized Cuomo for laying the foundation for the housing bubble while serving as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Lazio, however, led the oversight committee that oversaw HUD.
Cuomo during the interview praised Lazio’s cooperation.
‘(Lazio) was responsible for all the housing legislation and I was running HUD for Clinton so that’s where the relationship was really forged maybe by fire at sometimes,’ Cuomo said at the time.