PASTE 'EM ONE

Teabag-backed outsider and multimillionaire Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino has won the GOP nomination for governor of New York, upsetting the favorite. He galvanized the frustrated with outrageous rhetoric, and he isn't through with that. Addressing himself to Dem nominee Andrew Cuomo, son of former governor Mario, Paladino accused him of having a sense of entitlement and challenged him to debate, saying, "Andrew, for the first time in your life be a man."

Cuomo was reportedly furious and has been taking counsel on how to respond to this treatment.

For rightists to call into question the manhood of their opponents is nothing new, but it hasn't often been done this blatantly. The previous method was the old "soft on Communism" and "soft on crime" tags. And "Crazy Carl" has a kind of crude vitality that many may find refreshing because conventional politicians, including Andrew Cuomo, tend to be mealy-mouthed and careful not to offend anyone.

Cuomo doesn't want a free-for-all. But by hanging back he let Paladino choose what kind of campaign this will be, and that's what he opted for.

Paladino showed what he's about earlier, when he emailed racist and pornographic humor to friends, including a cartoon that showed the president of the United States as a comical black African "native." So you might figure that someone like like him would have no chance in as diverse and traditionally progressive a state as New York.

Think again. A new poll has Cuomo at 49% and Paladino at 43%, and the margin of error is 3%.

What should Cuomo do? I'd have him throw it back in Paladino's teeth. Stand up and call him a thug. Call him a social Darwinist who thinks that society should belong to the "successful" and that the rest of us can be written off. Say that he thinks only the weak care about everyone. Charge that he doesn't believe in our basic equality and that he thinks fairness is for losers. Say that he's indifferent to why some things have to be the way they are. Say that he'd paralyze the state and fight with everyone. Say that he thinks minorities are funny and inferior. None of that is untrue. All of it ought to matter.

Here's the thing: If you don't fight and fight hard for yourself, the people won't believe that you'll fight for them when it counts.

Nationally, too, the Dems should quit explaining and get moving. I have hopes for President Obama's instincts and I think he may do what it takes. As of the end of this month I would have him quit informing, quit arguing, quit appealing to reasonableness, and go wholly on the offensive. I would have him refute and ridicule the things the teabaggers say and go after their movement by name. I would have him directly address the birther nonsense, the claim that he is a Muslim, and the claim that he is a Marxist. I would have him cite these as proof of the irresponsibility of this fantasy movement. I would have him drive up the Republicans' negatives and give the Dems a shot of adrenalin so they stop running away from him and get a gleam in their eye.

The baggers have gotten this big because nobody slapped them down; nobody wanted to call them on their ignorance, their illusions, their frequent racism, and the lies they propagate. Politicians are reluctant to be critical of them because they see them as a portion of the electorate. They are a portion of the electorate that the Democrats cannot win over and that they may as well attack when they have reason to. Again, if you don't fight, the people will think that you're effete and that your position must be an indefensible outcome of gutless or corrupt operating.

A back-alley brawl isn't edifying. But it can be bracing. And it has to come!