Horrible People do Horrible Things: Episode Yesterday

You may have heard that yesterday Carl Paladino edged out presumptive New York State Republican Gubernatorial nominee Rick Lazio by [as of this writing] a wee 28% margin. In any case, now you have.

Carl's kinda a horrible person. According to the New York Times:

[Paladino's win] was a potentially destabilizing blow for New York Republicans. It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.”

Two quick points:

First, if I was Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic Party, I wouldn't be celebrating yet. Experts agree that Cuomo will be the next governor of New York, just as they agreed that Lazio would crush Paladino in the GOP primary.

New York is an extremely blue state, so it would be a colossal upset if Cuomo were to lose. However, Cuomo is, as the Times lovingly puts it, “exceptionally risk-averse.” I'm not sure if this refers to Cuomo's tepid history on LGBT rights, or his stance on charter schools and call for public employees to take yet another hit for the benefit of other taxpayers. Incidentally, the New York State United Teachers (a 600,000 member union) has not endorsed Cuomo.

Second, if I was Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic Party, I wouldn't be celebrating. I'm sure there are Democrats gloating about the prospect of Tea Party-esque candidates harpooning Republicans' chances in major elections. As far as New York goes, metropolitan NYC may well give Cuomo the votes to win the governorship. However, despite my best intentions, I happen to not live Downstate.

I'm a working class, atheistic, socialist, transsexual, lesbian woman living in Upstate New York. From my perspective, it takes a truckload of privilege to dismiss many of my neighbors' celebration of a proud bigot as an academic exercise.