Opinion: Wielding baseball bat, defeated New Yorker promises, ‘You have not heard the last of Carl Paladino’

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It was quite possibly the best, most ominous, most delicious campaign promise during a concession speech heard all night.

Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee for governor of New York, on Tuesday night promised, with baseball bat in hand, that he will be back.

Can we expect more of the same from Paladino?

During the campaign, his organization found itself defending the candidate’s e-mails containing racist and pornographic images.

In September, he threatened a N.Y. Post editor after he discovered the newspaper was attempting to photograph the 10-year-old daughter Paladino fathered out of wedlock with a former employee. (‘You send another goon to my daughter’s house and I’ll take you out, buddy.’)

The Buffalo millionaire, during the home stretch of the race, stood in front of Jewish leaders to denounce his opponent for marching in a gay pride parade (offending his gay nephew, who promptly quit the campaign), which only made him seem hypocritical since it was quickly revealed that he was the landlord of a gay bar.

Video after the jump...

‘I have a message for Andrew Cuomo, the next governor of New York,’ a defiant Paladino said in defeat with every nuance of his New York accent seething from his mouth as passion shot from his saggy eyes. ‘I’ve always said my baseball bat is a metaphor for the people who want to take their government back. But this isn’t my bat after all. As our next governor, you can grab this handle and bring the people with you to Albany. Or you can leave it untouched and run the risk of having it wielded against you, because make no mistake: You have not heard the last of Carl Paladino.’

-- Tony Pierce