Paladino: NY Post 'endangering the safety' of my daughter

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Paladino says tabloid photographers put his daughter in harm\'s way. (Azi Paybarah / WNYC)

The strategy is to cast the incident as a father defending his daughter from nosy tabloid photographers. In the act of defending her, Paladino hurled a charge of infidelity against his Democratic rival - without providing any evidence.

Here's Paladino's response:

The New York Post sent a photographer to the Buffalo home where Carl
Paladino's 10-year-old daughter lives with her mother. This
photographer attempted to take photos of the child through the windows
and subsequently attempted to follow the girl to a playground.

We believe this conduct puts Carl Paladino's daughter in harm’s way,
susceptible to kidnapping or sexual predators. This behavior by The
New York Post and their senior political editor Fred Dicker is
unacceptable. Endangering the safety of a 10-year-old child is
repugnant.

Carl Paladino is passionate about the need to clean up the mess in
Albany. The only thing he is more passionate about is his family. Carl
is deeply concerned about the privacy of his children and
grandchildren. His concern is well founded: in April his corporate and
campaign office was threatened with a bomb by a serial felon – this
man is being prosecuted today.

Fred Dicker has demonstrated his bias in this campaign from the
beginning. Veteran observers recall a similar bias during the
campaigns that elected Eliot Spitzer and George Pataki.

On September 17th, Mr. Dicker wrote of Cuomo's "tax and spending cut
plan," although Mr. Cuomo has proposed no tax cut and no spending cut.
Rather, Andrew Cuomo proposes to "slow the rate of growth of taxes."

When Andrew Cuomo's campaign charged Carl Paladino with receiving
millions of dollars in state leases, Mr. Dicker failed to note that
Andrew Cuomo or his Democratic predecessor reviewed and approved all
of Mr. Paladino's leases.

When Mr. Dicker attacked Paladino campaign chairwoman Nancy Naples,
for awarding bond underwriting to an underwriter active in the
Conservative Party, Mr. Dicker failed to note that the Comptroller who
succeeded Nancy did the very same thing and Nancy was never accused of
any improper conduct. And Mr. Dicker knew it, because I told him. He
failed to write it because it didn’t fit the Cuomo campaign plan.

Andrew Cuomo is on Fred Dicker's speed dial.

Sadly, while Fred Dicker may be on the payroll of The New York Post,
his outrageous bias toward Mr. Cuomo is demonstrated again and again
through his coverage of this campaign. Every political reporter and
observer in the state knows his bias.

Carl Paladino has been repeatedly asked irrelevant questions regarding
relationships he may have had while married. We challenge Fred Dicker
to ask Andrew Cuomo this question on the record, since it has been
posed repeatedly to Carl Paladino: "Did you engage in extramarital
relationships while you were married?" A simple "Yes" or "No" will
suffice.

Mr. Dicker will not ask this question of Cuomo, nor will Andrew Cuomo
answer it.

Mr. Dicker gets extra Cuomo Brownie Points by claiming Carl threatened
him. Carl has used this exact word choice throughout this campaign and
several times on Mr. Dicker’s radio show: he’ll take out this
government. He’ll take out the bad guys. He’ll take out Sheldon
Silver.

Carl feels the same about Mr. Dicker, who is the best example of the
cozy relationship some media have with the ruling elite. This is part
of the problem in Albany, and Carl will take out the trash.

Mr. Dicker's real purpose in this charade is to help Andrew Cuomo
avoid a public debate, where he might be forced to answer questions
about his disastrous stewardship of the U.S. Department of Housing,
where he's largely responsible for the sub prime mortgage crisis by
requiring government agencies to purchase hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of bad mortgages, costing U.S. taxpayers $2.4 trillion
or why he has failed to prosecute Obama advisor and big Democratic
fundraiser Steve Rattner for bribery, instead prosecuting the state
official whose brother received the bribe, but not prosecuting Mr.
Rattner, who made the $77,000 bribe in order to receive $75 million in
state pension funds.

New York voters can judge Carl Paladino and Andrew Cuomo's relative
fitness for the governorship only through such a debate. If Andrew
Cuomo does not have the courage to debate his opponents, how can he
have the courage to break the stranglehold of the special interests
destroying this state?

Carl has returned to Buffalo to console his upset daughter. The Post
photographers are gone. But will Mr. Dicker, who has no children,
publish the photos? That is Carl’s main concern.