A provocative debate from 7 New Yorkers

Oh sure, there was high comedy and low comedy to be had.

Jimmy McMillan did what he's done in New York City campaigns before. He obsessively repeated his perennial trademark line about the rent being too damn high - and even said someone should be able to marry a shoe if he wishes.

Warren Redlich, perhaps the Libertarians' answer to Al Franken, hit both major-party candidates - how Democrat Andrew Cuomo takes funds from special interests, but Republican Carl Paladino is a special interest. Kristin Davis, convicted of booking hookers, used her line about career politicians being the biggest whores in the state, and how she's qualified to say.

But there were also sober messages to be gleaned at the seven-way Hofstra debate. In the end, it was not a circus - not entirely, at least - but a pretty competitive political discussion from people out of the various New Yorks. It was provocative, if you wanted it to be.

Cuomo, the front-runner, was all about ballast - taking moderate positions most likely to be consensual among voters: How people have good reason to be angry and struggle under the burden of too many governments and taxes. How job development should get priority. How state officials need to return to a higher level of conduct and purpose. The message was smooth and sprinkled with specifics.

But others got to put their world views on display, too - whether they were answering or altering the thrust of the questions they were asked.

True, Paladino had moments in which he looked almost like Ralph Kramden on the "$99,000 Answer" - talking Medicare when he meant Medicaid, for example.

But the GOP nominee got his stances across on reducing school mandates, on slashing taxes and on a need to shed employees from the state payroll, among other talking points.

NYC Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn, of the Freedom Party, delivered a few ethnic appeals - in favor of more minority contracting, bemoaning a paucity of Latinos and Native Americans among questioners, giving a defense of African-American lawyer Alton Maddox, whose disbarment became a celebrated cause for some.

Redlich talked about how Libertarians want smaller government and gave glaring examples of overspending.

Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins went the other way. Like Barron, he blasted tax cuts for the rich and talked about a need for government to provide employment to those without it.

Davis called for new tax revenue to take pressure off the traditional taxes - by legalizing marijuana and casino gambling, for example.

Cuomo, of course, proved again he was the most experienced in the group - making sure to thank the sponsors and say, "Go Yankees."