Carl Paladino Runs on his Strengths

I've pointed out that this is the most interesting election year I can recall. We've been introduced to characters this election-cycle that I think we'll all be a long time forgetting--hopefully because they've been so darn interesting than because they've actually been voted into office. With all the spanktacular fun of Christine O'Donnell's primary win for Senate in Delaware, the GOP nomination of Carl Paladino for governor in New York has gotten a bit less fanfare.

It doesn't deserve much, either.

Carl Paladino's run in the primary as a Tea Party favorite was marked with a bit of kerfuffle owing to his somewhat unapologetic habit of forwarding racist and sexist emails. In other years, that might have been sufficient to sink a campaign--and I didn't think he'd win the primary, so I paid no mind.

Oh, how I wrong I was. But now that the guy is running against Andrew Cuomo, who undoubtedly has a lot of name recognition and the somewhat more solid backing of his party than I suspect this guy has, Paladino has to pull out all the stops. And it appears that he's already playing to his main strength--

Loathsomeness.

This month, his campaign has sent out two fairly disgusting pieces of campaign materiel. The first, and most fascinating to me, is an extraordinary mailer that smells "like a landfill." .

The mailer may be a bit much for some. Even before you open it, you notice an odor, according to a reporter who tested the mailer at Mr. Paladino’s campaign headquarters in Buffalo.

It isn’t awful at first. Garlic or onions? Or maybe cloves or really bad perfume? But after a few minutes, the smell gets worse and worse, and eventually, you realize that it smells like a landfill. That is not a coincidence; the smell was “captured,” technically speaking, at a landfill, according to the campaign.

Mr. Paladino’s barbed criticisms of Mr. Lazio are echoed in his radio spots.

The smell just gets worse, huh? Now, would you want your name tied to a mailer that might make sensitive people boot their breakfast? Well, that's Carl Paladino! Not afraid to make people puke--for New York!

But he's also sending out this weird flyer-thing via emails--a fairly poor 'shop of Cuomo in the shower. It's a bit "in your face", really. Perhaps a little off-putting. The question is whether this "guerilla" approach will be effective.

It's not a national election. It's New York's problem, and I live in PA. But I am fascinated....what will he do next? Moon his opponent? Burn a sack of manure on someone's doorstep? I hear amusing things can be done with eggs and toilet paper.

Does he have any ideas that don't involve grossing people out? I think that's a reasonable question.