Business World

The first major newspaper endorsement has been issued in the race for New York governor — even before the Republicans pick a candidate.

The New York Daily News has endorsed the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, saying that he is far superior to either Republican contender.

"There is no point in taking further stock of the candidates vying for the Republican nomination in next month's primary," the Daily News said. "Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino have been that awful."

Most of the newspaper's editorial was devoted to the Republicans' perceived shortcomings, rather than Cuomo's attributes.

The Daily News charged that Lazio, a former congressman from Long Island, "has thrown substantive ideas to the wind in favor of demagoguery free business cards." And it accused Paladino, a Buffalo developer, of offering "proposals [that] range from ill-informed to illegal."

The editorial also referred to two controversies that dogged Paladino's campaign earlier in the year.

"Paladino is also given to insensitivities that would divide New Yorkers," it said. "He has forwarded racist and pornographic emails, including some using the N-word, and contemptibly compared [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver, an Orthodox Jew, to the anti-Christ and Hitler."

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