BUFFALO, N.Y., April 5 (UPI) -- Conservative Carl Paladino announced before a crowd of hundreds in Buffalo Monday night he's running for governor of New York.
The wealthy 63-year-old lawyer-developer invoked the iconic line by the fictional news anchor Howard Beale in the 1976 movie "Network" that he's "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore," The Buffalo News reported.
Paladino, who jumped from the Democratic Party to the Republicans in 2005, said he will seek the Republican and Conservative nominations. He said the themes of his campaign would be lower taxes, a freeze on state government spending and hiring, lower state debt and returning New York to its stature as a job generating state.
"We will return our state to the control of its citizens and change New York for the better forever, and send all the rats running in Albany," the News quoted Paladino as telling the 600 or so energized supporters who chanted and screamed through his speech.
He pledged to spend up to $10 million of his own money on his campaign.
His opponents on the Republican side so far include former Rep. Rick Lazio and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's name has been mentioned as well. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is widely expected to jump in on the Democratic side.
The governor's office has been ground zero for controversy in recent years, with Eliot Spitzer resigning in a sex scandal in 2008 and his successor, David Paterson deciding not to run for a full term after being dogged by abuse of power allegations.
Paladino also has a past sexual indiscretion, the New York Daily News reported. Paladino, who has been married to his wife Cathy for nearly 40 years, fathered a child during an affair with an employee a decade ago, the newspaper said.
The couple also had three children together, one of whom died in a car crash last year. It was after that family tragedy that Paladino told his wife about his now-10-year-old daughter, who attended his candidacy announcement.
