Paladino Campaign Submits Petitions, Asks for Support

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2010
Contact: Michael Caputo
716-863-0806
mc@paladinoforthepeople.com


PALADINO FORCES REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR PRIMARY
WITH LOBBYIST LAZIO
Paladino Files Double Legal Requirement of GOP Signatures for Governor Race

(BUFFALO, NY) - Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for Governor of New York, today announced that his campaign, after the hard work of thousands of volunteers across the state, will this afternoon file 28,000 Republican signatures on petitions with triple the requirement spread across 21 Congressional districts and 62 counties. This petition submission will successfully place businessman Carl Paladino in a Republican primary for New York State Governor against lobbyist Rick Lazio.

"Today we will file a bullet proof package of 28,000 Republican petitions to place Carl Paladino on the Republican primary ballot," said Michael R. Caputo, campaign manager, Paladino for the People. "With tens of thousands of Republicans calling for Carl Paladino to be in the Republican primary, only one thing could explain why Rick Lazio would decide to challenge our petitions; fear. Rick Lazio can not beat Carl Paladino in a primary so he wants to knock him out of the process."

Carl Paladino, a successful Western New York real estate developer and attorney, declared his candidacy for Governor of New York in Buffalo in April. He and Tom Ognibene have submitted for approval enough petitions for the Republican primary and are now collecting petitions for the Taxpayer line. For more information on where Carl Paladino stands on the issues, please visit www.paladinoforthepeople.com.

##############################

Dear Friend,

I just had one of the most incredible experiences of my life- and I want to share it with you.

For weeks I had been promised that I would be allowed to speak as a candidate for Governor at the New York State Republican Convention in New York City.

When I arrived at the convention I learned that the Republican leadership had slipped in a convention rule that said candidates for Governor would be allowed to speak after the voting to select the Republican candidate and only those candidates who received 25% would be allowed to speak!

Have you ever heard of anything so backwards and undemocratic?

This so typical of the New York political situation where both parties have contributed to the dysfunction in Albany.

After a motion to move candidate speeches before the voting failed, and some quick thinking by Erie County Republican Chairman Nick Langworthy who was my convention floor manager, I was given a proxy so I could address the convention- by nominating myself! I had ten minutes to lay out our agenda for radical reform in Albany.

I never expected to be the choice of the Republican party bosses who have so much invested in the current system in Albany. I have always vowed to take my fight to the voters in the Republican Party primary. I know I will win the Republican Primary against former liberal Republican Congressman Rick Lazio whose days in Washington were marked by his strong support for the big-government style, sub-prime mortgage program push by Andrew Cuomo when he was the Secretary of Housing. Together Lazio and Cuomo cost US taxpayers $2.4 Billion in failed mortgages.

I have no illusions- just getting my name on the ballot will take a super-human effort to collect more than the 15,000 valid Republican voter signatures- which could cost our campaign more than $500,000. I have no choice.

If you want to volunteer to collect valid Republican voter signatures in your community please contact me by clicking here. Unless we press our people's campaign to clean up Albany- I am convinced that nothing will change under political insiders Rick Lazio or Andrew Cuomo. When I see the lobbyists and other special interests shoveling money into Cuomo and covering their bet with token contributions to Lazio you can see they are both members of the political elite that are destroying this state.

The political establishment will stop at nothing to stop real reform that erodes their power and riches.

I have a very specific and comprehensive plan to revive New York's economy to:

• cut taxes 10%.
  
  
• cut spending by 20% by eliminating waste, fraud and government programs that aren't working.
  
  
• cancel pension benefits and free health care for state legislators.
  
  
• impose 8 year term limits for all state elected offices including the legislature.
  
  
• institute a one-year residency requirement before anyone can receive welfare payments.
  
  
• re-negotiate the fat public employee pension deals that have literally driven us to the brink of bankruptcy.
  
  
• appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute corruption in the State Legislature and give him the subpoena power to get at the facts.

I have no illusions about how difficult it will be to force this package of reforms through the famously dysfunctional and corrupt New York State legislature. The people of New York must demand these reforms so that our legislators understand that there will be consequences for their inaction.

I can't do it alone. Democrat Andrew Cuomo has $20 Million dollars in special interest campaign contributions filling his war chest. Observers expect him to raise another $30 Million from the lobbyist, bankers, investment houses, Wall Street insiders, law firms, insurance companies and all those interested in maintaining the status quo in Albany.

While I have pledged to spend up to $10 Million of my own money, it will take far more if we are going to defeat the entrenched liberal special interests who have a stranglehold on our government.

That's why I am asking you to make a contribution to Paladino For the People today. I wish I could do it alone and while I have been blessed by my success in business, I cannot compete with the multi-Billion dollar special interests and public employees unions who like dysfunctional New York government just the way it is.

Together you and I can rally those New Yorkers who are fed-up and ready for radical reform. My campaign must raise an additional $200,000 in the next two weeks to keep our campaign plan on schedule.

Won't you send a contribution today?

I did not expect to be a candidate of the Republican Party bosses when they meet at their convention the first week of June. As I said, I intend to take my case directly to the Republican primary voters by collecting the 30,000 signatures that would ensure that my name appears on the September Republican Primary ballot. This effort alone could cost my campaign as much as $500,000.

If you want to help my campaign gather valid voter signatures as a volunteer please e-mail me by clicking here.

Because the New York State Conservative Party has also been co-opted by deal making, patronage hungry career politicians, I will also petition my way onto the November ballot on a Tea Party-oriented line. I believe this will create a vehicle to attract the votes of conservative Democrats and Independents who agree with us on the issues but are not comfortable voting Republican.

I'm doing my part, will you do yours? Will you help me save New York State?

You can use your Visa or Mastercard to make a contribution now. Won't you send $200, $100, $75 or $50? Even a contribution of $25 would be a big help.

Together we can defeat the bosses of the Republican establishment in their attempt to saddle our party with a weak nominee and defeat Andrew Cuomo and the liberal special interests who hope to make him Governor.

I would not be running and spending my own money if I didn't think I could win- but I cannot do it alone. Please help our campaign with a contribution today.

I will be checking for your response online. Thank you. Please let me hear from you today.

Carl P. Paladino

Candidate for Governor

PS - Don't let the attacks on me by the liberal media and political insiders distract you. The real obscenity is Albany and what they are doing with our money, not to mention the succession of corrupt politicians representing us. It seems like a new one is arrested every day. We can turn Albany upside down and take out the trash. Please go to https://www.paladinoforthepeople.com/donate.php and rush me your answer today.

PSS- If you want to volunteer to circulate petitions in your neighborhood to get my name on the ballot go to http://paladinoforthepeople.com/petition. Our campaign is a people's campaign and we need your help. If you want a Paladino for the people yard sign go to http://paladinoforthepeople.com/volunteer

Ognibene Offers Hope for Ulster County's Ailing Economy

Thomas Ognibene, gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino's running mate, spoke to the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party on Monday evening, July 12, at the Town of Ulster Town Hall. About 40 Tea Partiers were present. Ognibene, a former New York City Councilman, complements Paladino's Buffalo roots.  Ognibene ran for mayor against Michael Bloomberg in 2005 but the Bloomberg campaign challenged his electoral petitions, knocking him off the GOP ballot.

Ognibene said that the Paladino campaign is hopeful about its own petition drive, the outcome of which will be known as the Eagle goes to print.  Although the Democratic press has painted a rosy economic picture here in Ulster County, that picture is deceptive. The "pork" band aids that the Democratic politicians have put on the canker sores that they have created through over-taxation and over-spending are trumpeted in the Democratic media.  But what Democratic voters fail to realize is that the upstate area has been paying far more than it has been receiving.  Job growth in Ulster County since 1990 has been at less than one fifth of the national rate.  Neither the Democratic politicians nor the Democratic media discuss this trend because the Democrats are the reason.

Ognibene pointed out that Sheldon Silver, the Speaker of the Assembly, ought to be unelectable because of the damage that he and the Democrats have done to New York's economy.  As well, New York's wasteful spending (with per capita Medicaid spending double that of California) has caused firms and talented workers and business people to move elsewhere. Ognibene, along with Paladino, is calling for a modest 20% cut in the state's budget. 

One question from the audience was how Paladino and Ognibene will improve their profile in the New York City area.  They are better known upstate, especially in western New York, but will not be able to take the primary against Republican in Name Only (RINO) Rick Lazio if they cannot win New York City.  Ognibene told the audience that Carl Paladino, a successful, self-made real estate developer (the only gubernatorial candidate, Democrat or Republican, who has not spent his career at the public trough) has a ten million dollar war chest for that purpose.

Lazio Should Step Down

PO Box 130
West Shokan, NY 12494
June 12, 2010

Rick Lazio
Lazio 2010 Inc.
PO Box 4818
New York, New York 10185

Dear Mr. Lazio:

I am writing as a registered Republican and a member of my Town’s Republican Committee.

Your opponent, Carl Paladino, has publicly stated that during your tenure as a full-time employee and lobbyist for JP Morgan Chase you lobbied for and arranged a payment of $25 billion from the US Treasury to your employer. In other words, Mr. Paladino has publicly alleged that you participated in the “bailout." In return you received a $1.3 million bonus.

If Mr. Paladino’s allegations are inaccurate, please respond to this inquiry publicly.

If Mr. Paladino’s allegations are accurate then you are morally unfit to serve in public office. I am posting this letter on my blog and stating explicitly that if Mr. Paladino’s allegations are accurate you are morally equivalent to a common criminal and belong in jail. Consequently, I would urge you to step down from the gubernatorial candidacy and allow the better man to run.

Sincerely,


Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

Acid Test for New York State Candidates

A friend will be interviewing Steve Levy, a prospective New York State candidate for governor, as part of a Republican group. Levy is a Democrat who is considering running as a Republican. Although I am skeptical of over-zealous emphasis on partisanship in part because there have been too few differences between the parties for too long, I am also somewhat skeptical of cross-party candidacies, basically for the same reason. If a Democrat is really for reducing government, why on earth is he or she in the party of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Barack H. Obama?

But I am not dogmatically opposed to Levy and may in fact support him if he can prove himself as a small government or at least a reduced government candidate (the GOP's other best bet, Rudy Giuliani, is hardly a small government man--although there were no large increases in New York City government during Giuliani's incumbency there were no large reductions either and it is hard to know because of accounting shenanigans).

At first I suggested that my friend ask a wide range of questions, but I realized that only one are two are necessary if there is too little time. One very good litmus test is Levy's position on the Wicks Law. Senator Arthur Wicks was a Republican from Kingston, the very city in which I am a member of the County Committee. This is what I wrote to my friend:

All you have to ask him is about whether and how he will repeal the Wicks Law. The Wicks Law has been on the books since 1912. The law is named for Senator Wicks who amended it. Wicks, I believe, was from my own Town of Olive in the Village of Olive Bridge which is a few miles from my home in West Shokan. Ultimately Wicks was forced to resign as Senate Majority Leader and acting Lieutenant Governor because "it became known that he had made frequent visits to convicted labor leader Joseph S. Fay while the latter was incarcerated at Sing-Sing prison."

The Wicks law says that the state or any other public entity (New York City, Town of Olive) may not hire a general contractor (GC). Four separate categories of contractors, (a) heating, ventilating and air conditioning (b) plumbing (c) electrical (d) all other, must be hired and supervised directly by the state or other public entity. The lack of a GC opens the door to abuse, crime, coordination problems and law suits. Government officials lack the knowledge and experience required to supervise mammoth construction projects. That is why private sector developers hire GCs. Studies find that the Wicks Law increases public construction costs in the state by 15-30%. No one except construction unions and public contractors supports the Wicks Law. Even the New York Times has editorialized against it. Mario Cuomo had appointed an anti-crime commission that found that the Wicks Law fosters organized crime. When I served on the State Assembly staff in 1991 I attended a meeting at Alan Greenberg's office in Bear Stearns. The meeting was meant to devise cost cutting strategies. Presidents of the leading construction firms in New York City were the majority of the participants. I asked one privately about this and he told me that public construction in New York is so corrupt that he never bids on any public contracts.

Compounding the Wicks Law, if you have time there is a second issue, the diffusion of responsibility for construction in four or five different state agencies. These include the Dormitory Authority (whose existence in itself is an outrage) and the Office of General Services. There are two or three others. What happens is that the actual costs of construction are back charged to the agencies on whose behalf the construction is done. So if the Dormitory Authority does work for SUNY it gets charged to SUNY. This buries the true construction costs around the state. Openly comparing the construction costs in one agency would prove embarrassing to the state because the costs are so high, much higher than other states. The state avoids this.

See:

http://www.acecny.org/PDF/WicksLawPosition.pdf

http://www.stopthetaxshift.org/procurement/60-the-wicks-law