ALBANY, N.Y. (WBEN/AP) -- Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he still hasn't decided if he will debate tea party Republican Carl Paladino, who issued the challenge a week ago.
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Despite the lack of face-to-face contact, the contest is gaining national attention for some nasty tactics by both sides, despite pressing issues in New York including a fiscal crisis and state government's reputation for dysfunction and corruption. The online Drudge Report featured the governor's race Tuesday under the headline: "NY: The nastiest campaign ... dirt, smears, insults."
In a rare interview Tuesday, Cuomo told WGDJ-AM in Albany that he still hasn't determined if his campaign will agree on details to debate Paladino. The millionaire Buffalo developer and political novice shocked the GOP a week ago by beating the party's designee, former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio, in his landslide primary win.
Cuomo, the state's attorney general, had a 2:1 lead in the polls and a $20 million fundraising advantage in the latest state filings before last week's GOP primary.
Cuomo said, however, that he's his own campaign strategist and is above the fray, although the state Democratic Committee he directs has engaged Paladino for weeks. While Cuomo has refused to comment on Paladino publicly, Democratic surrogates and the state committee, responding to reporters' questions, have attacked and counterattacked Paladino in TV ads and blistering broadsides, calling Paladino "crazy."
"I think we have them worried," Paladino told The Associated Press. "We're trying to bloody them up and send them back" out of government. "They are like locusts coming from every direction right now."
Democrats on Monday released an Internet image of Paladino's face on a pig's body, with a pig's nose, rooting at "the public trough." It's a reference to about $10 million a year in state rents he collects for buildings he owns in Buffalo, a tax break and his own campaign contributions over the years to Democrats and Republicans.
Days before, Paladino's campaign released an image with Cuomo's face on a man in a shower trying to rinse off "special interest $$$" and other political dirt, referring to Cuomo's campaign contributors that include powerful public worker unions and other groups aligned with Democrats who control Albany. A rubber duck sat in the soap dish.
In Tuesday's radio interview, Cuomo tried to distance himself from the attack ads and news stories critical of Paladino, but he said he wouldn't admonish the state committee.
A New York Daily News headline on Tuesday stated: "Mad Carl Disease! Baffled Cuomo seeks cure for Paladino's personal attacks." The story told of an emergency meeting of Cuomo and his campaign staff on how to combat Paladino directly. Cuomo didn't deny the meeting happened.
"I don't think that was necessary," said Cuomo of the pig-at-the-trough ad, refusing to say if he approved the message. "I'm not going to run a campaign that engages in gutter politics," he said, laughing at what he sees as Paladino's strategy.
Asked about whether he would agree to debate Paladino, Cuomo raised the possibility of requiring that Lazio, who may still run in November on the minor party line, be part of the debate. Cuomo wouldn't respond when told that tactic is usually done to dilute the opposition's message and air time.
When pressed, Cuomo wouldn't say if he will debate.
"As soon as the question was asked, I said I was open to debate and the campaigns would talk about it. That was just last week," Cuomo said, with six weeks left in the campaign. "'Open to debating' means I'm open to debating, just what the words suggest ... that really isn't a legitimate issue."
Paladino spokesman Michael Caputo said Cuomo's campaign was not negotiating.
"They are ducking me," Paladino said.