debates

Carl Paladino Needs More Than 5 Seconds to Say Whether He Supports Marriage Discrimination

Though Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is 2 Damn High Party was the highlight of last night’s New York gubernatorial debate (the first and last one) at Hofstra University, it wouldn’t be an event without Carl Paladino complaining about gotcha journalism. Which is what his campaign promptly did after the debate moderator, in the closing minutes, asked candidates whether they supported same-sex marriage.

The question about marriage equality support came at 8:18pm and candidates were asked to give simply a yes or no answer. In five seconds. Seems reasonable enough, right? After all, “Do you support same-sex marriage?” is a yes or no question. But not in politics. Which means Paladino’s attempt to go into a long-winded response got shot down, and he eventually responded that no, he doesn’t support it. (Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo said he did.)

Cue advisor Roger Stone, he of the gay pride parades, bitching: Hofstra “never said that there would be a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer on gay marriage limited to five seconds. Someone at Hofstra was on the take. That was not in the rules, but that was political. We need an explanation as to how that happened cause it’s not — there are very strict rules that they submitted [and] it was never mentioned.”

Yes, it’s all one big conspiracy to upend Paladino’s campaign. Oh, he’s doing a fine job of that himself?

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