It has been easy to ridicule Carl Paladino’s campaign for governor. And the video he just released is more strangeness: It seems to have been completely improvised, shot in some kind of public lobby with knives and forks clinking in the background, and I waited thirteen minutes for some explanation of the identity of the young person sitting nearly motionless behind Paladino’s right shoulder. But it’s also strangely compelling. Not just for Paladino’s invocation of the memory of his dead son, but for his raw exasperation with New York government. That feeling is shared by millions, and it hasn’t been adequately addressed by Andrew Cuomo. Paladino will lose big tomorrow, but the larger problems and emotions he’s trying to express won’t be going away.
