Cuomo calls Paladino claims 'degrading' to him, daughters

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Friday that his three daughters are being turned off by politics after reading about his opponent Carl Paladino's "baseless accusations" - later withdrawn, and Friday revived - that he had been unfaithful to their mother.

Collecting an endorsement from the borough president of Staten Island Friday, Cuomo said Paladino's accusations of infidelity and his aggressive faceoff with a reporter over the issue were "not easy" for his daughters and "demean this state."

"My children read the papers," Cuomo said, calling the talk "degrading." He said he had talked to his daughters and "explained to them the truth" about Paladino's claims.

"It's not easy for them to go through this," said Cuomo, who was divorced by Kerry Kennedy, his wife of 13 years, in an ugly public split in 2003. He has not remarried since. His twins are 15 and another daughter, 13.

Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro agreed, saying Paladino would be ill-suited for the monumental job of closing the state's looming deficit - or for governing at all, for that matter.

"New York State, in my opinion, would shut down if he was governor," Molinaro said of Paladino at a news conference at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

The nod is significant because Molinaro's own Conservative Party gave Paladino its ballot line at a nominating convention Wednesday.

Molinaro said he was uninterested in discussing Paladino's claim that he now had evidence of Cuomo's infidelity, or Paladino's threat this week to "take . . . out" a New York Post reporter if that newspaper did not stay away from his 10-year-old daughter by an extramarital relationship.

"It's his own personal business; it has nothing to do with me," Molinaro said. But he noted the next governor will need bipartisan support to close a budget gap likely to total $30 billion over three years. "Paladino could not do it," Molinaro said.

Degrading or not, the news of the week has created an opening for Cuomo's campaign, which late Friday announced that the distaste stirred by Paladino "is sending Republicans and Conservatives running for the hills."