Just seven short weeks after scooping up the GOP nomination for governor, Buffalo bomb-thrower Carl Paladino’s quest for high office is over.
For good, we hope — though that may be a wish too far.
Paladino was pounded like a railroad spike, losing by 30 points on a day that Republicans were making historic gains elsewhere in America.
Fair to say he earned that loss.
He came out swinging — or, rather, slandering and smearing, especially Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
Rarely did he take an opportunity to make a policy point, nor did he ever miss one to issue an insult.
Tuesday morning he vowed he’d never run again; but Tuesday night, he picked up a baseball bat and, glowering, promised that New Yorkers “have not heard the last of Carl Paladino.”
One race wasn’t punishment enough for the Buffalo blusterer?
For New York, it sure was.
And his lunatic ravings didn’t just sink him: Paladino didn’t help the rest of the GOP ticket, either.
Harry Wilson lost the comptroller race to union poster-boy Tom DiNapoli by three points. Staten Island’s squeaky-clean DA, Dan Donovan, lost the AG race to utterly compromised Albany insider Eric Schneiderman.
Now, thanks in no small measure to Paladino, the special interests get to spend the next four years playing transactional politics with their old pals, Schneiderman and DiNapoli.
Now Paladino is off to wherever angry politicians go to swallow their meds and work on their issues.
Here’s hoping his enablers, dirty tricksters Roger Stone and Michael Caputo, slither away with him.
Enough, Carl. Enough.