Lombard for News; Heupel/AP
Carl Paladino (r.) and his team fire back at Gov. Paterson, saying he's lucky he's not in jail.
ALBANY - Scandal-scorched Gov. Paterson learned the perils yesterday of labeling as "dangerous" Tea Party tough guy Carl Paladino.
Moments after Paterson issued the warning on WWRL radio, Paladino's team went nuclear.
"Dangerous like letting more girlfriends of his staff members be beaten, is that what he means by dangerous?" snarked Paladino's campaign manager Michael Caputo.
Paterson's governorship was derailed and his election campaign was scuttled this year amid an investigation into his contact with domestic violence victim Sherr-una Booker.
She accused Paterson's top aide, David Johnson, of smacking her around last Halloween.
Caputo dismissed Paterson as a corrupt "stooge" of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo, "who he owes a lot for not being in jail today."
A probe by the attorney general's office did not result in charges against Paterson, but his political prospects went up in smoke.
Paladino's campaign wasn't done smacking Democrats.
It sent an email to reporters depicting Cuomo in the shower, naked from the waist up and wearing a thick gold chain, wiping off spots of mud bearing the names of special interest groups and labor parties.
"Clean up Albany?" says the Photoshopped image. "Start with Cuomo."
Cuomo's surrogates on Thursday hammered Paladino in a TV for being a government insider, donating big bucks to candidates over the years and collecting hefty state contracts.
Democrats got help in their war on Paladino yesterday from Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long, who backed loser Rick Lazio in the GOP primary.
He trashed Paladino as unelectable and "more of a caricature, not a candidate."
"How do you say Carl Paladino in French?" Long quipped this morning on Albany's Talk 1300 AM. "It's Pierre Rinfret."
Rinfret is the Republican who garnered just 22% of the vote against Mario Cuomo in 1990 after the Conservative Party backed Herbert London, who won 21% of the vote.
Caputo ripped Long. "Only a complete idiot would compare Pierre Rinfret to Carl Paladino," he said.klovett@nydailynews.com
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