Left to right: Andrew Cuomo, Carl Paladino, Warren Redlich, Howie Hawkins, Kristin Davis
Click audio for more insights from SU political science professor Jeffrey Stonecash, Mark Dunlea of Howie Hawkin’s campaign and SU political science professor, Kristi Anderson.
For governor, voters have five choices in November:
Democrat Andrew Cuomo, now the attorney general; Republican Carl Paladino, an outraged businessman from Buffalo; perennial Green candidate Howie Hawkins of Syracuse; the former Manhattan madam, Kristin Davis; and Libertarian Warren Redlich, a town board member of Guilderland.
In the Sept. 14 Republican primary, Paladino beat former Congressman Rick Lazio for the GOP nomination. Paladino received 272,898 votes to Lazio’s 166,656 votes. Lazio had been the party’s favorite.
In his victory speech on primary night, Paladino welcomed the party’s support: “I want everyone in the Republican Party who opposed me to know this — you’re welcome to join the people’s crusade. Come aboard, you’re both welcome and needed.” He is campaigning on a “mad as hell” anti-government platform that has also won him wide popularity among the tea party movement of frustrated voters.
The governor’s seat is an open race without an incumbent. Gov. David Paterson has decided not to run for the office. The general election is Nov. 2.
On the political spectrum, New York is an intensely blue state. Of the 16 million registered voters, 8 million are Democrats compared to 3.5 million registered Republicans. There are 500,000 members of The Independence Party. Roughly 165,000 people are in the Conservative Party. There are just over 29,000 Green Party members and another 3,000 who register with the Libertarian Party.
Roughly 3 million voters — or 19 percent — are registered but with no party affiliation.
Here are some sketches of the gubernatorial candidates:
Carl Paladino (Republican):
Paladino, 64, is a native of Buffalo. He served in the U.S. Army and then practiced law in New York for 15 years. He is best known as the CEO of Ellicott Development Company, a real estate development company in Buffalo. The company started in 1973 and now controls $500 million in assets. Paladino has a personal net worth of $150 million.
His campaign did not respond to two interview requests.
In his campaign for governor, Paladion calls for a 20-percent immediate cut in state spending and comparable cuts in state taxes. His campaign threat to take “a baseball bat” to Albany has become synonymous with his candidacy and he takes pride in being blunt-spoken.
Early in his campaign, he came under fire for sending out e-mails containing racist and vulgar jokes. He dismissed those as items he’d forwarded to others without reading or noting their content.
For the Republican primary, Paladino spent $3 million of his own money on the campaign, according to The New York Times. He has pledged to spend up to $10 million on his campaign for governor.
Still, many political analysts suggest he won’t win the governor’s race. “I can’t imagine he’s got much chance of winning,” said Jeff Stonecash, a political scientist at Syracuse University. “He’ll give a little visibility to a Republican candidate. The question is, will he do some things that are off the wall that will hurt the party image?”
Andrew Cuomo (Democrat):
Andrew Cuomo has been the state’s attorney general for since 2006. In that office, he focused on government corruption and promoting transparency. He launched Project Sunlight, a Web site that gives public access to statewide government information. He’s also targeted Wall Street, forcing nine of the largest financial institutions getting federal aid in the recession to disclose the salaries of top executives.
His campaign did not respond to interview requests.
If elected, he would be the second member of his family to be governor. His father, Mario Cuomo, was governor of New York from 1983 to 1994.
Andrew Cuomo started gaining political experience on his father’s staff, as an adviser to the governor before joining the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He was an assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1997 and then secretary of the department from 1997 to 2001.
Cuomo, 52, was born in Queens. He attended Fordham University and received his law degree from Albany Law School. He was married to Kerry Kennedy, the seventh child of Robert F. Kennedy, for 13 years. They have three children.
In his campaign for governor, he calls for a one-year emergency financial plan to stabilize spending. Cuomo also proposes cutting the size of state government by 20 percent.
Facing the anti-incumbent mood of voters, Cuomo has some potentially heavy political baggage, said Kristi Andersen, a Syracuse University political scientist. “Cuomo,” she said, “is the consummate insider.”
Howie Hawkins (Green Party):
Howie Hawkins has run for Syracuse mayor, Syracuse Common Council, Onondaga County executive, New York state comptroller and both houses of Congress. So far, he has never won an election.
Still, SU political scientist Stonecash commends Hawkins on his persistence. “Howie is a good soldier,” said Stonecash.
Hawkins is a former Marine and longtime activist in peace, environmental and social justice movements. Hawkins attended Dartmouth College. In New England, he worked in construction and helped to organize a workers cooperative that specialized in energy audits and solar and wind installations. Now, he works unloading trucks for United Parcel Service in Syracuse.
In his campaign, Hawkins calls for raising taxes on the rich, increasing funding for public school and raising the minimum wage. His senior advisor, Mark Dunlea, describes Hawkins’ platform this way: “We want to hire everybody.We want to put everybody to work.”
Dunlea added, “We want to invest in renewable energy. We want housing. We want to take over more of the cost for local, you know, schools.”
Kristin Davis (Anti-Prohibition)
On her Web site, Kristin Davis describes herself this way: “Best known as the woman who provided escorts for a New York Attorney General and Governor, Elliot (cq) Spitzer. Kristin Davis was convicted of promoting prostitution and served 4 months on Riker’s Island.”
Despite misspelling her famous client’s name — it’s Eliot — Davis highlights her connection to Spitzer in own campaign for governor. She is on the November ballot on the line of the Anti-Prohibition Party, according to the New York State Board of Elections.
“I am running on a platform of personal and economic freedom,” Davis says on her Web site.
Among her policy initiatives, she said, are ending the prohibitions against marijuana, gay marriage and casino gambling. Removing the bans will “generate new revenues instead of raising taxes on already overtaxed New Yorkers,” she said.
Before becoming a madam, Davis says, she was a vice president of a hedge fund. In the scandal that forced Spitzer from office, Davis was convicted of promoting prostitution and served four months on Riker’s Island, New York City’s main jail complex.
Warren Redlich (Libertarian):
In 2008, Redlich worked as a lawyer for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. In 2004 and 2006, he was the Republican candidate for congress in New York’s 21st Congressional District, which surrounds Albany.
For governor, he’s running as the Libertarian Party candidate. His campaign did not respond to interview requests.
Redlich was born in New York and grew up in the town of Guilderland, a suburb about 12 miles west of Albany. He received his undergraduate degree from Rice University, his master’s from Stanford University and a law degree from Albany Law School. On his Web site, Redlich said he taught English in Hiroshima, Japan, for one year.
He is a member of the National Rifle Association. He supports gun ownership under the Constitution’s Second Amendment and a right to carry a concealed weapon. He calls for voter approval of pay raises for elected officials and for a cap on government officials’ pay at $100,000 a year.
In an interview with “Capital Tonight” public affairs show, Redlich said, “We can save a lot of money if we just agree public-sector pay should be kept at $100,000 a year.”
(Michael Contino is a senior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and international relations.)
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